Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 312
312 and each should be rewarded or punished according to his capacity and his doings. Death serves the purpose of keeping the conse- quences of man’s actions hidden from him, and enables him to arrive at the truth after a process of deliberation and reasoning and acting in the fear of God. It enables him to develop a spirit of freedom which would other- wise be lost to him. Another purpose which death serves is that it en- ables the human soul to develop its finer faculties. The human body is too dense to observe the finer aspects of the universe of the spirit. Its severance from the body, therefore, enables the human soul to become conversant with matters which are essential to its limitless progress. As soon as the soul leaves the body it starts forthwith on a new path of progress and is not kept a prisoner in a dark cell to await the result of its trial. This misconcep- tion is the result of the theory that this life is a course of studies with an examination at the end of it, and as there is an interval between an examination and the an- nouncement of the result, it is imagined that there is a similar interval between this life and the Day of Judg- ment which is the day on which the result is to be announced. While it is true that this life is a trial, it is not in the nature of an ordinary university examination with which we are familiar, but is more akin to the workings of nature. Islam has drawn a comparison between the life after death and the life of a man in its earlier stages. As a child develops from a sperm—nay from vegetable and animal life—in the womb of the mother, and after birth passes through a stage of help-