The Essence of Islam – Volume II — Page 395
The Soul 395 are bereft of the qualities that they possess during waking hours. For instance, the soul of a living person meets a dead person in a dream and does not know that that person had died. It forgets this life altogether as it sinks into sleep, and discarding its garment of life puts on a new garment forgetting all its knowledge and all its memories of the world except that much as God may keep alive. It suspends all its activities and truly arrives before God. All its movements and words and emotions pass under the control of God Almighty. It loses all choice and it cannot be said that anything that it does or says or hears in a dream is by its own choice. It exhibits all the signs of death. During sleep the soul suffers an even greater death than does the body. If people were to reflect upon their condition during sleep they would realize that if the soul had been exempt from death it would have continued to enjoy that exemption in sleep also. Our condition during sleep is a mirror for the purpose of our comprehension of our condition in death. . He who seeks true comprehension of the soul should reflect deeply on his condition during sleep. Every mystery of death can be resolved through one's experiences during sleep. If you will reflect deeply on the mysteries of sleep and dreams and will contemplate how the soul suffers a sort of death during sleep when it is bereft of its knowledge and qualities, you will realize that death has a great resemblance to sleep. Thus it is not true that after its separation from the body the soul continues in the condition which it enjoyed in this life. Under. God's command it suffers the same kind of death which it had experienced in sleep, only that condition is intenser than its condition in sleep and every one of its qualities is reduced to nothing. That is the death of the soul. Thereaf-