Deliverance from the Cross — Page 100
as, for instance, 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 there from shall you be brought forth'. (al-A'raf, 7:25-26) At another place it is said: 'Have We not made the earth vast enough to gather the living and the dead?? (al-Mursalat, 77:26-27) On one occasion the opponents of the Holy Prophet assured him that they would believe in him if he would ascend up into heaven and bring down therefrom a book that they could read; in answer to which he was directed to tell them: 'Holy is my Lord. I am but a human being sent as a Messenger'. (Bani Isra’il, 17:94) This means that it is contray to God's law for a human being to ascend to heaven in his physical body, and that the Holy Prophet, being human, though a divine Messenger, could not ascend to heaven. 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 100