Reincarnation vs. Resurrection: The Debate Ends (original) (raw)
Related papers
Reincarnation in Abrahamic Religions
The first part of this thesis attempts to demonstrate the historical traces of the belief in reincarnation among Jews, Christian and Muslims. The second part is dedicated to a hermeneutical analysis of the Bible and the Quran regarding the indications to reincarnation in general, and reincarnation of the Messiah in particular.
Reincarnation (Tanāsukh) According to Islam: Comparative, Historical and Contemporary Analyses
This study has three parts. In the first part I am going to make a comparison between belief in the Hereafter in Islam and belief in reincarnation in Indian religions in terms of their respective views of about God and the universe. In the second part, I am going to discuss the group associated with belief in the migration of the soul (tanāsukh) and the reaction they received from Muslim thinkers through Islamic history. In the third part, I am going to deal with the idea of reincarnation as the modern version of the idea of the migration of the soul. In this context, I am going to discuss various claims of groups or organizations defending the idea of reincarnation. Among these claims, one may include the following: reincarnation is scientifically verified, belief in reincarnation solves the problem of evil, and reincarnation is supported by sacred books including the Qurʾān. My overall purpose is to show that the religion and thought systems reveal their doctrines of immortality within the integral framework of their ontology, epistemology and universe models. In this regard, I will conclude by noting that the belief in reincarnation is not only incompatible with the Islam's belief in hereafter but also Islamic teachings concerning God, the universe, and man.
Resurrection of the Dead: A Jewish Belief
Sefer Press Publishing, 2025
This paper explores the evolution of Jewish beliefs regarding the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of the soul, tracing their roots in ancient scriptures, apocryphal texts, rabbinic discussions, and modern theological interpretations. It examines early biblical references linking resurrection to national restoration and righteousness, as well as apocryphal works that elaborate on afterlife expectations, including final judgment and spiritual transformation. Rabbinic debates are analyzed to illustrate varying perspectives on the scope and nature of resurrection—whether universal, restricted to Israel, or specific to the righteous. The study also considers influences from natural philosophy and the challenges posed to traditional views by modern Jewish thought, especially within the Reform movement. By mapping the theological, liturgical, and philosophical dimensions of resurrection beliefs, this work highlights their centrality to Jewish eschatology and their broader implications for understanding justice, redemption, and the human destiny.
Vol. 23 No. 2 (2021): Afkar: Jurnal Akidah & Pemikiran Islam, 2021
The study aims at investigating the epistemology of the concept of resurrection in the hereafter in the views of al-Ghazālī and Fazlur Rahman. This study used documents analysed descriptively and epistemologically. It was found that both figures admitted that resurrection in the hereafter occurs not only in the spirit but also in the body. However, al-Ghazālī's conception was a dualism of body and soul, while Rahman believed that body and soul are inseparable entities. Epistemologically, al-Ghazālī used text, reason, and intuition as sources of knowledge while Rahman used only text and reason. Al-Ghazālī tended to apply the kalām and intuitive (mystical) methods, while Rahman was more concerned with the philosophical and kalām methods. Discussion by al-Ghazālī was undertaken in theological-metaphysical study of eschatology, while Rahman went beyond mere theological-metaphysical study in which he directed his study towards an ethical-anthropocentric discussion. This comparative study is essential for observing and developing Islamic thought and education.
Resurrection -The Quranic Demonstration in This Life
Resurrection (life after death) is one of the basic belief in the religion of Islam. We should not just believe (Iman) in it, we should be certain (yaqeen) about it. How can one prove the happening of an event that will occur in a distant future? The Quran has not only asserted that it will happen, but has demonstrated many components of it. This paper will explain how these examples can help us develop certainty about resurrection. The Quran first establishes that, from the perspective of soul, the sleep and the death are the same. In both the cases the soul departs from the body. The Quran then demonstrates that the departed soul has the potential of returning to the body, whether the person is asleep or dead, as long as the body is intact. If it is not intact, it can be reconstituted from the pieces of flesh or like a plant, it can be sprouted back from a seed (nucleus of the cell or the cell itself). The Quran has thus demonstrated all the aspects of resurrection. The resurrection on the Day of Judgement will happen by first reconstituting the body by sprouting it back from a seed (nucleus of the cell or the cell itself). The soul will then be returned to the reconstituted body. The person will feel as if he has just woken up from a night sleep. Resurrection thus should just not be a matter of belief (iman), it should rise to the level of certainty (yaqeen).
The "Arabian Heresy": A Neglected Source for Understanding the Resurrection in Islam
This essay is dedicated to the memory of Karl-Heinz Ohlig (1938-2024), friend and spiritual fellow traveler, both of us growing up in post-World War Koblenz, Germany. The paper will be presented at the Inarah Symposium in Trier, Germany, on May 3, 2024, and will be published in a future Inarah volume. In the course of my work on the book manuscript on Islamic origins I discovered the "Arabian Heresy," knowledge of which in my judgment is critical for the understanding Islam. Surprisingly, the role of this so-called heresy has remained largely unexplored in most Islamic scholarship.1 I caught a first glimpse of this "heresy" when I studied the Chronicle of Seert which dates to the ninth-eleventh century but cites excerpts from earlier authors. It mentions a synod of bishops of ca. 570-590 which condemned a doctrine according to which both body (jasad) and soul (nafs) are mortal but rise together in the Resurrection.2 No other document mentions this synod which-to judge from the context-was probably an East Syriac assembly in Mesopotamia.3 The doctrine, according to the Chronicle, was current already at the time of Origen (ca. 185-ca. 253) who sought to replace it with his "much worse" doctrine of the spirit (rūḥ)4 going (dakhala) from one body to another. The propagators of the doctrine of the mortal body and soul during Origen's time around 244-248 were Arab Christians in Roman Syria.5 Nothing is known about these Christians, but there is little doubt that their doctrine of the death of body and soul is rooted in the pre-exilic Hebraic tradition, which thus survived in the Near East with the update of a Christian Resurrection.6 Most Christian theologians in the 200s subscribed to what is called the anthropology of the immortal soul resting with Jesus or God after death and eventually reuniting with the old but transfigured body in the Resurrection, as envisioned by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.7 A century later, the-what one may call-"oblivion" doctrine of resurrection was still around on the popular level. Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 265-339) castigated it as a "strange doctrine" refuted by
A Comparative Study of Death and the Afterlife in the Abrahamic Faiths
Life after death is as mysterious as it is frightening. This paper is an overview of the beliefs of the three Abrahamic faiths, namely: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, about death and what comes after it. There are many similarities between these traditions but there are quite a few differences also. This is with regards to what has been mentioned in the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Mostly however, we find that Islam offers details that are not found in the earlier traditions and hence no comparison can be made. The dearth of information about the afterlife in the Jewish and Christian teachings has led to many scholars coming up with hypotheses and speculations about what to expect after death. Islam, on the other hand, gives us all the details about what will transpire and this is, after everything is said and done, the greatest difference between the three religious traditions
A fundamental doctrine of Islamic belief is the general resurrection of all humankind. Conventionally, within the genre of Muslim dialectical theology (kalām), theologians and philosophers discussed the resurrection often in the final sections and chapters of their larger works and so the treatment is comparatively less than the prior epistemological, metaphysical and ethical discussions. Although Muslim scholars did not discuss personal identity as a separate topic, a cognate concern about identity was bodily continuity, namely whether it was necessary that a person be raised with the same body for resurrection to be valid. In this paper, I chart the various ways Islamic thinkers up to the 7th/14th century discussed models of bodily identity in connection with the resurrection, as well as the key arguments and counter-arguments they raise and address in their characteristically dialectical style. The paper will cover the following: 1) a brief account of the Islamic doctrine of resurrection and its overall rationality based on the Qur’ān’s own arguments, 2) how metaphysical discussions of continuity entered into the Islamic doctrine of bodily resurrection, 3) models of bodily continuity proposed by medieval Muslim thinkers, and 4) my tentative proposal of animalism as a model for explaining the necessity of resurrection, assessing its strengths and weaknesses relative to the doctrine of dualism advanced by al-Ghazālī and al-Rāzī.