Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 47
THE RENAISSANCE OF ISLAM 47 The physical survival of Jesus in heaven is also refuted by the Quran in the verse: 'Muhammad is but a Messenger; of a surety all Messengers before him have passed away. If then he should die or be slain, will you turn back on your heels?' (3: 145). This establishes definitely that all prophets who had preceded the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, had died and that none of them was physically alive. When the Holy Prophet himself died, some of his companions were so over- whelmed with grief that they asserted that he had not died and would soon be revived. Hazrat Abu Bakr drew their attention to this verse that all prophets who had appeared before the Holy Prophet had died, and that his death was in accord with the divine law that everyone who is born must die in due course. On that occasion he made his famous pronouncement: 'Hearken! Let him out of you who wor- shipped Muhammad know that he has died, and let him who worshipped Allah draw comfort from the realization that He is Ever-Living and is not subject to death. ' The earth has been appointed man's natural habitat, as it is said: 'There is an abode for you and a provision for a time on this earth. Therein shall you live, and therein shall you die, and therefrom shall you be brought forth' (7:25-6). At another place it is said: 'Have We not made the earth vast enough to gather the living and the dead?' (77:26-7). A good deal of confusion has resulted from the double connotation of the word heaven. It means both the sky and all that it comprises as a geographical entity, and also the spiritual state and condition that the righteous would enjoy after they pass on from this life. The human body is so designed and is invested with such faculties as enable it to function properly in the conditions that prevail upon the earth. It cannot survive under any other conditions. If by ascent to heaven of any person it is meant to convey that such a person has departed physically from the earth and has taken up his abode somewhere in or beyond the atmosphere of the earth with his physical body, or has been admitted with that body into the conditions of the spiritual state which is pro-