As I was performing my regular rounds this morning I heard some interviews on NPR with the administrators, teachers, and students from a private Islamic school in Indonesia about the tsunami. One of the teachers was quoted as saying “we will meet to pray for the dead”. This struck me. I don’t know that much about Islam but perhaps someone better informed can fill me in. Do Muslims believe in Purgatory?
The idea of praying for the dead has been attested in Christianity from a very early date—the first or second century AD. That’s the source of the idea of Purgatory. When you think about it Purgatory is a very peculiar idea and it’s a characteristic of some but not all Christian denominations.
If there’s only the binary choice of Heaven or Hell and the soul is assigned to one or the other at death, either the practice of praying for the dead can’t be effective, it’s possible to conjure God (which is blasphemous), or it’s possible to change God’s mind (which would seem to contradict the omniscience of God). Since the earliest Christians—those who had known Jesus or those who had known those who had known Jesus—believed in the efficacy of prayers for the dead, early Church Fathers concluded that it must be possible for the soul to make progress after death through the intercession of the prayers of the faithful and came up with the idea of Purgatory through inference.
So, do Muslims believe in Purgatory? Or is this a case where there’s a distinction between the folk religion and the formal religion?
I do believe the “Christian” (I quote Christian because both the Presbyterian and Baptist denominations that I have taken part in hold a very dim view of Purgatory, so it’s nowhere near a universal Christian construct) notion of Purgatory is a misconstruction, in that God exists outside of time and space and thus, prayers at any particular time are actually, to Him, not constrained to that particular point in time, thus, like Marty McFly, prayers can “jump” around in time, inasmuch as God can act and affect today, tomorrow, yesterday and right now with equal ease.
Doug, note that I wrote that it’s a belief of some but not all Christian denominations.
For those who die before the day of Judgement there is a state of waiting called barzakh.
Muslims believe that on the last day, the day of Judgement, the graves of the dead will open and their bodies will rise. All will stand before God and face his Judgement.
Muslims believe that all of your good deeds will be weighed against your bad deeds if the good outweighs the bad you will go to Heaven if the bad is heavier than the good you will be sent to Hell.
In another description of judgement each person is made to carry their sins on their back over bridge if their sins are too great they will fall into Hell.
Muslims describe heaven as a wonderful place of paradise full of gardens of delight.
Hell is described as place where people are chained with hot winds blowing around them, boiling water and black smoke.
In Islam isn’t there a belief in a place in the hereafter known as “The Heights” (also to be known as “Araf” if I spelled it correctly) where you’re not considered too good to enter heaven but not too sinful to enter hell but at the same time whoever ends up there will eventually end up in paradise so therefore isn’t ” The Heights” considered more like a time out?
A big “NO” I’m a moslem and I do not believe in purgatory because I hold a strong conviction that after one is dead and not here on earth then he/she has no chance of repentance if he/she has been evil,imagine this;someone might have died without belief in ALLAH and how possible is it that ALLAH can forgive him/her just because others prayed for him/her?
Muslims do believe in a form of ‘purgatory’ but it is called Araf in Islam. People who are too good to go to hell but not good enough for heaven go there. There is a narration that from amongst the people that go there, some people will decide to give all their good deeds to someone else who is also in Arat thus making them eligible for heaven but this means that they now have more sins which means they must go to hell but as Allah is benevolent and merciful he will let the one who ‘donated’ their good deeds into heaven as well.
Hope this helps. 🙂
There is a belief similar to this:
in Roman Catholicism. It is called the “Heroic Act of Charity”