very earth and heaven have changed at the Resurrection, how can the human body remain the same? And in fact the Holy Qur’ān has stated clearly that it shall be a new body altogether. In one place, the human beings at the Resurrection are called the likes of the present race: “Do they not consider that Allāh Who created the heavens and the earth is able to create their likes?” (17:99), where the Arabic words for their likes are mithlahum, the personal pronoun hum referring to men, not to heaven and earth. In another place, the statement that the bodies would be changed is even clearer. There, the question of the unbelievers is first mentioned: “When we die and have become dust and bones, shall we then indeed be raised?” (56:47). And the reply is given: “See you that which you emit? Is it you that create it or are We the Creator? We have ordained death among you and We are not to be overcome, that We may change your state and make you grow into what you know not. And certainly you know the first growth, why do you not then mind?” (56:58-62). After men have become dust and bones, they shall be raised up again but their “state” will be entirely “changed,” and the new growth will be one which “you know not”, while “you know the first growth.” The human body at the Resurrection is, therefore, a new growth with our present senses which we cannot even know. And this is as true of the human body as of all things of the next life, of the blessings of Paradise as well as of the chastisement of Hell, that they are things which according to a saying of the Holy Prophet, “the eye has not seen, nor has the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive of them” (Bu. 59:8). The resurrection-body has therefore nothing in common with the body of this world except the name or the form which preserves the individuality.

A body prepared from the good and evil deeds of man

To understand how, what may be called the spiritual body of the life after death, is prepared, one must turn again to the Holy Qur’ān. There it is stated that angels have been appointed to record the good and evil deeds of man. Thus in the opening sections of the 13th chapter, a denial of the Resurrection — “When we are dust, shall we then be raised in a new creation?” (13:5) — is followed by the answer: “Alike (to Him) among you is he who conceals the word and he who