Knowing the Spirit

Chapter Four: The Purely Bodily Return

Chapter Four The Purely Bodily Return This is the belief held by most of the theologians, jurists, and official leaders of the religions of the “people of the (revealed) Book,” including the books of the Torah, Gospels, Qur’an, and others. Moreover, the majority of Muslims, in addition to the literal text of the verses of the Qur’an, have also taken into consideration the transmitted reports of the hadith (of the Prophet) and traditions of the holy Imams. The proponents of this view say that since the Return of the bodies (of the dead at the Last Day) is something that the religious experts among the people of the Book have accepted and come to agree upon by consensus, as is required by the literal texts of (God’s) Word in the divine Scriptures and the widely transmitted reports (of the teachings of the Prophet and Imams), they consider the belief in the bodily Return to be one of the essential elements of religion; so they consider whoever denies that to be an opponent (of the true religion). In particular, (this group maintains that) the verses of the Qur’an concerning the Return are so unambiguously clear that they don’t allow any room for interpretation. Since that is the case, the reasonings of an (opposing) group of philosophers—based on things like “the impossibility of bringing back what was annihilated,” the objection concerning “the beast of prey and the person who is eaten,”1 and the claim that the impossibility of this (material bodily Return) is “self-evident,” and the like2 —are all groundless and absolutely without foundation. On the contrary, given the absolute Power of the 69 70 Knowing the Spirit Creator to bring (any) creature into being, there is nothing to prevent (God’s) bringing back what was annihilated, or overcoming the objections about the predator and the person who is eaten and the like. Moreover, [these theologians continue] that original “Clay,”3 the essential substance and “self” of the being that was brought from nonexistence into existence in the first place, is the real basis for what we are considering here. And that (essential substance), because of the survival of the spirit, is not annihilated by the destruction and annihilation of the (dead) body, so that the whole problem of the “impossibility of bringing back what was annihilated” doesn’t even enter into this discussion. For just as that (essential substance) was nonexistent to begin with and then came into existence through the Will of the Almighty and took on the shape of a material, corporeal body, so likewise through God’s Will it will again come to exist in a living, corporeal form, as a body endowed with a spirit. This is just like what is reported in (the following report recorded in) the Kåf¥:4 Imam Ja‘far al-Sådiq was asked: “Does the dead body disintegrate ?” He replied: “Yes, insofar as neither its flesh nor its bones remain—only that Clay (or essential substance: t¥nat) from which it was created. For that does not disintegrate , and it will remain in the grave in a (potentially) ‘recurrent’ form until God creates that person from it once again, just as He created him the first time.” Besides, all the great prophets were basically in agreement in what they said about this matter—that is, about the bodily Gathering, Reawakening, and Return. So no one could possibly have faith in those prophets and at the same time deny the bodily Gathering and Reawakening; those two things cannot be combined. Now the arguments and proofs brought forward by the proponents of the bodily Return are quite numerous, but they are also so very well known that there is no need to mention them all here. If it is necessary, one can consult the (theological) books relating to this subject. Here it should be sufficient to refer to the considerable number of Qur’anic verses—288 in all—which the late Majlis¥ mentioned in support of this claim, in his (famous compendium of Shiite tradition ) Bihår al-Anwår.5 In connection with this, it should be mentioned that the believers in the Return of the body also fall into two groups: The First Group [who argue for the Return of a newly recreated material “likeness” of the original body, but without the very same The Purely Bodily Return 71 elemental...