The One Who Created Death and Life - Portal Gems #56

Est. Read time: 3 min
Edition Number: 56
Adapted from: The Dominion: Tafsir of Surah Al-Mulk
Instructor: Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed

Assalamu Alaykum,

Today’s gem is from Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed’s course, The Dominion: Tafsir of Surah Al-Mulk. In this gem, Mufti Abdul Rahman shares different interpretations of why death is mentioned before life in the second ayah of Surah Mulk.  

Hope you enjoy!

We begin in the Name of Allah ﷻ, the Most Merciful and Compassionate,
We ask that He ﷻ sends Peace and Blessings upon our noble and beloved
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

There are two things that I want to highlight in these four words:

The first is that death is mentioned before life. Let's stop there for now, I’ll touch on this in a second. The second thing is that this is the only place in the Quran where Allah ﷻ speaks about death and life as a creation of Allah ﷻ. He doesn't speak about it as the One who gives life and gives death, it's the One who created death and created life. 

Now coming back to death being mentioned before life. Many mufasirun speak about why death was mentioned before life. One of the interpretations is because the original state was lifeless - our original state was that we had no life and then Allah created us.

The second interpretation is that Dunya, this is beautiful, that He used death as an expression of Dunya.

Why?

Because in Dunya, a person is experiencing death around him and in his own body all the time. One constant thing in this world is death, whether it's a person dying or whether it is one of us slowly deteriorating over time. 

In this world, you see this happen all around you. And then in Akhirah the beautiful thing is that there is no death. One of the first things that will happen in Qiyamah is that death will be brought in the form of an animal, and Allah ﷻ will give death to death. So there will be no such thing as death. It will only be eternal life. So that’s why some of the mufasirun say that death was brought first first to talk about Dunya, and life was in reference to Akhirah.

May Allah ﷻ grant us tawfiq to recognize the reality of this life.

أقول قولي هذا وأستغفر الله لي ولكم، فاستغفروه إنه هو الغفور الرحيم

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