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Professor
05-15-2007, 10:25 PM
Kullu Nafsin dhaikatul maut
"Every soul must taste death..." Suratul 'Ankabut - 29:57

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon
"..Indeed we are from Allah and indeed to Him we will return." Suratul Baqara 2:156

From the moment you breathe for the last time, you will become nothing but a “heap of flesh”. Your body, silent and motionless, will be carried to the morgue.
There, it will be washed for the last time. Wrapped in a shroud, your corpse will be carried in a coffin to the graveyard. Once your remains are in the grave, soil will cover you. This is the end of your story. From now on, you are simply one of the names represented in the graveyard by a marble stone.

During the first months or years, your grave will be visited frequently. As time passes, fewer people will come. Decades later, there will be no-one. Meanwhile, your immediate family members will experience a different aspect of your death. At home, your room and bed will be empty. After the funeral, little of what belongs to you will be kept at home:most of your clothes, shoes, etc, will be given to those who need them. Your file at the public registration office will be deleted or archived.

During the first years, some will mourn for you. Yet, time will work against the memories you left behind. Four or five decades later, there will remain only a few who remember you. Before long, new generations will come and none of your generation will exist any longer on earth. Whether you are remembered or not will be worthless to you.

While all this is taking place in the world, the corpse under the soil will go through a rapid process of decay. Soon after you are placed in the grave, the bacteria and insects proliferating in the corpse due to the absence of oxygen will start to function. The gasses released from these organisms will inflate the body, starting from the abdomen, altering its shape and appearance. Bloody froth will pop out the mouth and nose due to the pressure of gasses on the diaphragm. As corruption proceeds, body hair, nails, soles, and palms will fall off. Accompanying this outer alteration in the body, internal organs such as lungs, heart and liver will also decay. In the meantime, the most horrible scene takes place in the abdomen, where the skin can no longer bear the pressure of gasses and suddenly bursts, spreading an unendurably disgusting smell. Starting from the skull, muscles will detach from their particular places. Skin and soft tissues will completely disintegrate. The brain will decay and start looking like clay. This process will go on until the whole body is reduced to a skeleton.

There is no chance of going back to the old life again. Gathering around the supper table with family members, socializing or to having an honorable job will never again be possible.

In short, the “heap of flesh and bones” to which we assign an identity faces a quite nasty end. On the other hand, you - or rather, your soul - will leave this body as soon as you breathe your last. The remainder of you - your body - will become part of the soil.