The hereafter: the grave, resurrection and reckoning

Al-Tahawi believes in the noble recording angels and the angel of death ¹, in the grave's punishment for whoever deserves it, and in the questioning of Munkar and Nakir in the grave about the Lord, the religion and the Prophet — "as the reports have come from the Messenger of God and from the Companions" — and says: "The grave is a garden of Paradise's gardens, or a pit of the Fire's pits" ¹.

"We believe in the resurrection, the requital of deeds on the Day of Resurrection, the exposure, the reckoning, the reading of the book, reward, punishment, the Sirat and the Scale" ².

"Paradise and the Fire are created; they will never perish nor cease" — God created them before creation and made people for them: whom He wills to Paradise by His favour, whom He wills to the Fire by His justice ². He says: "Everyone acts toward what was finished for him, and comes to what he was created for" ².

In the living's prayers and alms there is benefit for the dead; God answers supplications and fulfils needs ³.

Ibn Qudama states that "the grave's punishment and its bliss are true" and that the Prophet sought refuge from it ⁴; "the grave's trial is true, the questioning of Munkar and Nakir is true, and resurrection after death is true" ⁵; then the gathering, the reckoning, the spreading of the records and the setting of the scales ⁵; "the Scale has two pans and a tongue by which deeds are weighed" ⁶; the Basin and the Sirat ⁶; and "Paradise and the Fire are created and do not perish" ⁷.

Ibn Taymiyya says: "Part of belief in the Last Day is belief in all the Prophet reported of what comes after death" ⁸: the grave's trial and the questioning — "Who is your Lord? What is your religion? Who is your prophet?" — then bliss or punishment "until the great Resurrection comes and souls are returned to bodies", when people rise from their graves barefoot, naked and uncircumcised; the scales are set, the records spread, and God reckons the creatures ⁹. In the plain of the Resurrection is the Basin — "a month long and a month wide" — and the Sirat "set over the back of Jahannam", which people cross according to their deeds ¹⁰.

In "the account of the sum of the saying of the people of hadith and sunna" in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari presents what the people of hadith and sunna hold, ending: "And in all we have mentioned of their saying we speak, and to it we go" ¹¹. He relates there that they say "Paradise is true, the Fire is true, the Hour is coming without doubt, and God will raise those in the graves" ¹²; they affirm "the grave's punishment, that the Basin is true, the Sirat is true, resurrection after death is true, God's reckoning of His servants is true, and standing before God is true" ¹³; they believe in Munkar and Nakir ¹⁴; "and they affirm that Paradise and the Fire are created" ¹⁵.

This entry presents the positions of the 'Aqida al-Tahawiyya, Ibn Qudama's Lum'at al-I'tiqad, Ibn Taymiyya's al-Wasitiyya, and what al-Ash'ari related in Maqalat al-Islamiyyin of the people of hadith and sunna and declared his own — each attributed to its book. The sayings of the Maturidis and the remaining Sunni and non-Sunni schools from their own books have not yet been added; the entry needs specialist review before promotion.