The agonies of death (sakarat al-mawt)

The Sheikh says that the "Nazi'at" (Qur'an 79:1) are the angels who tear out the souls of the disbelieving criminals with force ¹. He relays from Ibn Abbas a comparison for the departure of the disbeliever's soul, which begins by picturing a tree branch with offshoots that carry thorns (needs_source) ¹. He completes the comparison: the branch is pushed into the disbeliever's throat until every thorn catches on one of his veins and on his intestines, and then the strongest of men pulls the branch out in a single jerk; this, he says, is how the disbeliever's soul comes out (needs_source) ⁸.

The Sheikh likens it to pulling a skewer out of wet wool, where the wool clings to the spikes and the soul of the disbeliever is made to drown, and he says this is the feeling of a drowning person as the soul leaves, unlike the believer ⁹. He says that the "Nashitat" (Qur'an 79:2) are the angels who draw out the believer's soul gently, as a man lifts a bucket out of a well so that the water does not spill ². He notes that the Prophet described the departure of the soul as like a drop falling from a waterskin, and the Sheikh gives the example of a tap from which drops fall easily ¹⁰.

He relates that when the agonies of death came upon the Prophet he said to Aisha that death has agonies, and the Sheikh prays that God ease the agonies of death for us ³. He reports that a believer who still has sins on him moments before death may have the agony of death made harsher by God as an act of mercy, so that it is the last expiation for his last sin and he leaves the world as he was born, without sin (needs_source) ¹¹. He says that the angel of death does not come down alone but with two groups of angels, angels of mercy and angels of punishment ⁴.

The Sheikh describes the believer's soul as being drawn out from the nails of his feet and rising in stages to the knees, then the thighs, then the middle of the body, with the person left to rest between one stage and the next, then to the chest and then to the collarbones (Qur'an 75:26) ¹². In the verse that follows (Qur'an 75:27), the Sheikh says that the angel of death asks the two groups around him, and he gives two interpretations of the word in it: the first is that it means who will recite a healing charm over this soul and bring it back to its owner, and the second is that it means who will carry this soul upward, so that if it is a believer's the angels of mercy come forward and if not the angels of punishment come forward ^{5 6}.

The Sheikh then illustrates the angel of death by the comparison of the chief surgeon, who does not enter the operating room until his assistants have prepared it ⁶. He elaborates the comparison: the nurses prepare and sterilize the place and check the surgical instruments and their number, then the anaesthetist comes, and then the chief surgeon enters ¹³. He says that the believer, while sitting with his children, sees the angel of death enter his room, and his family do not see him because their souls are still within the confines of the body ¹⁴.

He compares the soul of the dying person to an aeroplane on the runway gathering all its power before takeoff, after the lights are dimmed and the seatbelts fastened ¹⁵. He says that at that moment a person detaches from time and place and no longer knows what day or hour it is, and begins to enter another world and another life ^{16 17}. He holds that this other life passes for the deceased through very long stages that only God knows, while those present see only moments, and he gives the example of a father who was talking with his family and then the cup fell from his hand ¹⁷.

He says that the dying person sees the angel of death even if he is in a coma in which he cannot hear the doctor speak ¹⁸. He recounts that al-Hasan passed by a noisy house and asked about it, and they told him they were mourning a dead man; he said the dead man had escaped three things the mourners had not yet escaped: seeing the angel of death, which he had now seen, the bitterness of death, which he had now tasted, and not knowing his destination between paradise and the fire, which he now knew (needs_source) ^{18 19}. The Sheikh then speaks of Amr ibn al-As (may God be pleased with him), the conqueror of Egypt, and says that the prayers, zakat, pilgrimages, scholars' gatherings, remembrance, night prayers and charity of the Egyptians from the year 23 AH to the present, millions of people across history whose number today he puts at ninety million, are all in the scale of Amr ibn al-As's good deeds (needs_source) ²⁰.

The Sheikh criticizes an Egyptian who objects to Amr ibn al-As, holding that a non-Egyptian might object but that this does not befit an Egyptian in particular ⁷.

The Sheikh relates that Amr ibn al-As described the state of his soul in the death throes as being like a bird above a pan of boiling oil, unable to fly away and be saved or to die and find rest, and that he said his soul felt as if it were coming out through the eye of a needle (needs_source) ²¹. In the context of the "Sabihat" (Qur'an 79:3), the Sheikh says that when the angel of death enters upon the one who lived in luxury, he sees his face and knows that the matter is over ²¹. He says that at death the worthlessness of the world becomes clear to a person, who may no longer be able to speak ²².

He relays that Harun al-Rashid, in his death throes, said that his wealth had not availed him and his power had not helped him (needs_source) ²². He says that when the angel of death comes to an obedient servant he takes his soul, accompanied by angels with perfume and shrouds from paradise that wrap the soul, and they ascend with it to the sky, and the gates of the heavens are opened for it ²³.