the chastisement of the Hereafter is greater, did they but know” (68:33).

Barzakh

The state between death and Resurrection is called barzakh which literally means a thing that intervenes between two things, or an obstacle or a hindrance (LL.). The word barzakh has been used in this latter sense of an obstacle in two places in the Holy Qur’ān (25:53 and 55:20), where a barrier between two seas is spoken of as barzakh. As signifying the state between death and Resurrection, it occurs in the following verses: “Until when death overtakes one of them, he says, My Lord, send me back, that I may do good in that which I have left. By no means! It is but a word that he speaks. And before them is a barzakh until the day when they are raised” (23:99, 100). This intervening state is also known by the name of qabr, which means grave, but has also been used in the wider sense of the state which follows death. Thus the three states, death, the grave and Resurrection, are spoken of, where the grave undoubtedly stands for barzakh: “Then He causes him to die, then assigns to him a grave (aqbara-hū); then when He will, He raises him to life again” (80:21, 22). And the raising to life on the Day of Resurrection is spoken of as the raising of those who are in their graves, as in 100:9 and 22:7, where all people are meant, whether actually buried or not. The state of qabr is therefore the same state as that of barzakh, the state in which every man is placed after death, and before the Resurrection.

Second stage of the higher life

Since the Holy Qur’ān speaks of the growth of a higher life even in the life of this world, the spiritual experience of man is the first stage of the higher life. Yet, ordinarily, man is neglectful of this higher experience, and it is only persons of a very high spiritual development that are in any way conscious of that higher life. Barzakh is really the second stage in the development of this higher life, and it appears that all men have a certain consciousness of the higher life at this stage, though full development has not yet taken place. In the Holy Qur’ān, even the development of the physical life is