mentioned as passing through three stages. The first stage of that life is the state of being in the earth; the second, that of being in the mother’s womb; and the third, that in which the child is born. Thus we have: “He knows best when He brings you forth from the earth and when you are embryos in the wombs of your mothers” (53:32); “And He began the creation of man from dust. Then He made his progeny of an extract of worthless water. Then He made him complete and breathed into him of His spirit” (32:7-9); “And certainly We create man of an extract of clay; then We make him a small life-germ in a firm resting place … , then We cause it to grow into another creation, so blessed be Allāh, the Best of creators!” (23:12-14). Corresponding to these three stages in the physical development of man, the stage of dust, the stage of embryo and the stage of birth into life, the Holy Qur’ān speaks of three stages in his spiritual development. The first is the growth of a spiritual life which begins in this very life, but it is a stage at which ordinarily there is no consciousness of this life, like the dust stage in the physical development of man. Then there comes death, and with it is entered the second stage of a higher or spiritual life, the barzakh or the qabr stage, corresponding to the embryo stage in the physical development of man. At this stage, life has taken a definite form, and a certain consciousness of that life has grown up, but it is not yet the full consciousness of the final development which takes place with the Resurrection, and which may therefore be compared to the actual birth of man, to his setting forth on the road to real advancement, to a full awakening of the great truth. The development of the higher life in barzakh is as necessary a stage in the spiritual world as is the development of physical life in the embryonic state. The two thus stand on par.

Spiritual experience in the barzakh stage

That there is some kind of awakening to a new spiritual experience immediately after death is abundantly evident from various Quranic statements. For example, the verses in which barzakh is spoken of2 set forth the spiritual experience of the evil-doer, who immediately becomes conscious of the fact that, in his first life, he has been doing something which is now detrimental to the growth of the higher life in him, and hence desires to go back, so that he may do good deeds