فصلنامه قبسات
پیاپی 46 (زمستان 1386)

Death is one of the greatest puzzles of human life which has drawn the attention of scholars during the history. One of the exceedingly discussed questions is the philosophy of death and finding the roots of its consequent anxiety. Mohammad Taqi Jafari is one of the personalities, among Islamic scholars, who has well reflected on the subject of death. He believes that there are various perceptions of death some of which are positive and some are negative. These perceptions are rooted in human's perception of philosophy of creation and meaning of life. One cannot have a correct perception of death without attaining philosophy of life. For this reason he deeply relates the meaning of life and death. Dividing life into rational and mere natural lives, Jafari believes that philosophy of death is positive and logical in the rational life while it is negative and unacceptable in the mere natural life. He believes one cannot find a correct meaning for death without interpreting human and existence. Listening to the message of death and making a positive relation with it, is subordinate to the kind of look at the world and human being. According to Jafari's view listening to the message of death results in priority of human being. In accordance with existentialist philosophers, especially Heidegger, he considers the serious attention to death in relation with priority of human. Ja’fari believes reflecting on the pass of life follows anxiety some of the times which can be overcame by internal changes. He also has some deep analysis about martyrdom and its value. For example he interprets the greatness of martyrdom in relation with desirability of life and the purpose of martyrdom.

In this article the subject of death is discussed according to Molla-Sadra’s ontological and metaphysical foundations. The definition of human, according to Sadra’s view, is mortal rational animal. He believes that soul passes through all of its existential steps to have a gradual movement in substances and a genetic travel to be transferred from this world to the Hereafter and after the completion of this travel in this world, an event named death will occur. Therefore death is nothing more than the end of soul’s movement in this world and transferring to the Hereafter. Yet there are some important discussions some of which are answered in this article according to Molla-Sadra’s perspective. They are as follows: Is the travel and evolution of soul possible in the intermediate world or not? Are there different kinds of death? Is death special to human being or the world’s entire beings - including substances, plants, animals, angles and etc. - die as well? Is death a necessary and an unavoidable event?

Plato and Molla-Sadra have a thirst and entreaty for death. Analyzing Plato and Molla-Sadra’s views of the content of the ilm-on-nafs relating to the death, this article will investigate the characteristics of human death to find out their similarities and differences. According to Plato’s thought, death is bound with myth. He also believes the existence of soul before body during which it has observed the realities. According to Molla-Sadra’s view, there is a concept named natural death which is the result of transubstantiation and corporeal contingency of soul. Finally it will be explained that besides time pre-understandings, different egology bases has also resulted in Plato and Molla-Sadra’s different understandings of death, despite their similarities. Plato regards death as a return to the world of realities because death is a separation from the world of becomings and a philosopher desires it; while according to Molla-Sadra’s thought death is a stage of perfection which has previously started by transubstantiation and the material world provides the conditions for real knowledge.

In this article we will try to investigate the rational proof of proving life after death. The proofs investigated in this article are as follows:1.The proof of innate nature,2.The proof of rationality;3.The proof of justice;4.The proof of wisdom;5.The proof of immateriality of soul;6.Ethical proof;These proofs can be generally divided into two groups: 1. Proofs that use God and his attributes to prove life after death; such as one reading of the proof of nature, and the proofs of justice and wisdom.2. Proofs that prove life after death without using God and his attributes; such as the proof of rationality, immateriality of soul and the ethical proof.Life after death is proved by the immortal-desiring nature of human in the proof of nature, by God’s justice in the proof of justice, and by God’s wisdom in the proof of wisdom. According to the proof of rationality, believing life after death is more reasonable than not believing it. The ethical proof proves it by an ethical command and the proof of immateriality of soul proves it by the immortality of soul. All of these proofs are analyzed in this article.

One of the common subjects among different religions is “voluntary death and a second birth” or in other words “voluntary death and spiritual birth”. The present article will investigate this subject from the perspective of Islamic mysticism. Mentioning the division of death from mystics’ perspective, the definition of voluntary death, as one of the kinds of death, and the reason of its naming is first discussed. Then there will be a brief look at related concepts, the relation between these concepts and the issue of voluntary death will be shown and through this course, the different aspects of this discussion and the expansion of its meaning will be clarified. Due to the fact, according to the knowledgeable people (ahl- ma’rifat), that ‘voluntary death and a second birth’ or ‘voluntary death and spiritual birth’ are the two significant bases of spiritual journey and symbols of negative and affirmative aspects of ‘the journey to God’, the discussions are divided into two parts: first discussions that expand on the concept of death and are on the basis of the negative aspect of mysticism which is previously mentioned and include concepts such as killing the soul, repentance, annihilation, becoming close to God by doing recommended prayers, journey from exoteric to esoteric issues; and second discussions that explains the effects of this kind of death and are on the basis of the affirmative aspect of mysticism. It includes concepts such as permanent existence, becoming aware of the world’s facts, spiritual Resurrection, achieving real life and second birth. The method of posing discussions in this article is approximately the same as the method commonly used in mystical discussions; thus using holy verses of Quran, narrations and quotations of scholars of religion and mysticism through the discussions, they will have the necessary validity. I hope it will be favored by researchers of this field! If God wills.

Death is a “rational” matter not a “sensible” matter and it means a transformation from the world of plurality and nature to the world of unity and supernatural. In fact, after going through the “descending curve” from the world of aql to the material world, human being will go through an “ascending curve” by death and will travel from the material world to the world of aql and reality. Thus death is the separation of soul from natural body which has two kinds: 1) natural death, 2) voluntary death which is special to people free from themselves who go through internal and esoteric hejrah and reach to the position of annihilation in God (actual, attributive or essential annihilation). “Voluntary death” means avoiding vices and achieving virtues, freedom from self-conceit and arrogance, permanent audit of soul before the occurrence of the Resurrection, comprehension of existential poverty and intuition of the essential need of himself, and endurance of mortifications and reproaches which can be achieved by refinement of the spirit, reason and soul. This kind of death has four types: 1. red death; 2. white death; 3. green death; and 4. black death which is the result of knowledge of God and mere Divine servitude. In this article "voluntary death" is analyzed within one introduction and four subjects: the quiddity of voluntary death and its kinds, possibility or impossibility of voluntary death, ways of having voluntary death, and Islamic mysticism and voluntary death.

Studies regarding death and the states of the instant before death (NDE) have started from the first years of twentieth century A.D. Nine steps are extracted to explain the steps of before death experience which are as follows: sense of relaxation, sense of noise, experience of exiting from the corpse, experience of passing through a dark tunnel, visiting some luminous persons, facing a sacred and illumined being, reviewing the life, reaching a frontier or an obstacle and return. According to mystical teachings and some views mentioned in mystical books, some mystics and Suffis have spoken of experiences which they consider as the result of separation of soul from body or reduction of their relation. One of these experiences is body’s separation from soul and returning to it. In fact viewing invisible matters or a great deal of mystical experiences, according to mystic’s teachings, doesn’t require the separation of soul from body. Rather just by weakening corporeal aspects and strengthening spiritual faculty, one can view some matters which are not visible for public. This is known for mystics who go through a specific and endure mortification. There are overall some considerable similarities and differences between mystical experiences of death and the experiences of the instant before death.

This article is written to investigate and analyze the essence of Sunni's conflict with Shiite on the subject of "Rijat". The terminological meaning of Rijat includes the following points: 1- possibility of the dead's rebirth, 2- return of a group with pure faith and a group of mere pagans to the world at the eve of the Resurrection and outbreak of a war between them, 3- terminating of the world is together with victory of the righteous believers. Most of Shiite scholars have accepted the three parts of Rijat's meaning but one group has rejected the second part and instead of that, they believe the emergence of the right government. The ones who believe in Rijat have different reasons; some of the great Shiite scholars have documented Rijat by the consensus of Shiite's scholars, some have considered a Quranic origin for it, and some believe it because of the variety and multiplicity of its related narrations. Nevertheless Sunni scholars consider believing in Rijat a heresy in religion and regard this belief of Shiites as an effect of Judaism, without considering the three points included in the meaning of Rijat and determining the exact point of debate. It is obvious that Shiites and Sunnis have the same opinion regarding the first and third parts, because they are documented by Quran's literal meaning without any ta’vil. As a result the conflict is only in the second part of the mentioned meanings and this meaning should not be considered a heresy, since such an issue is not impossible because of reason, occurrence of some of its samples during the past nations, and especially considering some of Quran's verses which can bear such a meaning. Nevertheless Shiites believe that Rijat is a necessary part of religion not one of the principles of religion; Therefore this conflict is not so much profound and extensive that one sect could regard the other as innovator and Jewish.

After the death of Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) Islam's new-born political system encountered a theoretical–political conflict which changed the path of the theoretical base of Prophet's life style about Islamic government and this was a start for a new intellectual course in the concept of Islamic government. Eventually these conflicts changed the situation of Islamic communities such that two types of governments were formed in the world of Islam: one was based on Prophet's life style and Quranic reasons and the other one was formed considering common-sense and demands of the age. These two types resulted in the two theories of Imamate and caliphate such that the period of caliphate is a time with the main theorizing conflicts which ended up with the two views of Sunni and Shiite. They both believed that the leader after Prophet (peace be upon him) is a person who should control and organize the affairs. Yet they had two completely different views about the extent of his authority and the range of his power and this resulted in two manifestations of the essence of caliphate and the conditions of Imam which reinforced the theoretical conflict of Imamate. This article will explain the theoretical-political conflict at the age of Imam Ali (peace be upon him) and the political-social reflections of these conflicts on the appearance of political-social changes in the Islamic nation which taints the convergence and unity of the world of Islam. Today’s situation of the world of Islam which is affected by previous theoretical-political changes makes it necessary to explicate a pervasive strategy to activate Islamic unity. Imam Ali’s theoretical-political behavior which is a pattern and prototype of the unity of Islamic nation can activate the unity strategy in the world of Islam.