What is raj‘ah [“return”] and why do you believe in it?

Reply: In Arabic, raj‘ah literally means “return” but it is used to mean “the return of a group of people after death and prior to the Day of Resurrection”. This truth is contradictory to neither reason nor the logic of revelation.

From the viewpoint of Islam and other divine creeds, the essence of man consists in his absolute soul, which is also described as the “self” [nafs], and after the extinction of the body it continues to exist forever.

On the other hand, God, the Exalted, from the viewpoint of the Qur’an, is Omnipotent whose power nothing can hinder or limit.

This short introduction makes clear that raj‘ah, from the viewpoint of reason, is not impossible; for, we will find through reflection that the revival of this group of people is far easier than God’s first creation of them.

Therefore, the Lord Who created them in the first time is undoubtedly capable of reviving them.

According to the logic of revelation, there are examples of raj‘ah in the past nations.

In this regard, the Glorious Qur’an says:

الصّاعِقَةُ فَأَخَذَتْكُمُ جَهْرَةً الله نَرَى حَتّىٰ لَكَ نُؤْمِنَ لَنْ مُوسىٰ يا قُلْتُم إِذْ وَ ﴿

﴾ تَشْكُرونَ لَعَلَّكُمْ موْتِكُمْ بَعْدِ مِنْ بَعَثْناكُمْ ثُمَّ ٭ تَنْظُرُونَ أنْتُمْ وَ

“And when you said, ‘O Moses, we will not believe you until we see Allah visibly.’ Thereupon, a thunderbolt seized you as you looked on. Then We raised you up after your death so that you might give thanks.”[1]

Elsewhere, the Qur’an quotes ‘Īsā al-Masīḥ (Jesus the Messiah) (‘a) as saying: ﴾ اللهِ بِإِذْنِ الْمَوْتىٰ وَأُحْىِ ﴿ “And I revive the dead by Allah’s leave.”[2]

The Holy Qur’an not only endorses the possibility of raj‘ah but also affirms the occurrence and certainty of the revival of a group of people after their departing the world. In the two verses below, the Qur’an points to the return of a group of people after death and prior to the occurrence of the Day of Resurrection.

تُكَلِّمُهُمْ الأَرْضِ مِّنَ دابَّةً لَهُمْ أَخْرَجْنا عَلَيْهِمْ الْقَوْلُ وَقَعَ وَإِذَا ﴿

فَوْجًا أُمَّةٍ كُلِّ مِن نَحْشُرُ وَيَوْمَ ٭ يُوقِنُونَ لا بِئَايَٰتِنَا كَانُوا النَّاسَ أَنَّ

﴾ يُوزَعُونَ فَهُمْ بِئَايَٰتِنَا يُكَذِّبُ مِّمَّن

“And when the word [of judgment] falls upon them, We shall bring them an Animal from the earth who shall speak to them that the people had no faith in Our signs. That day We shall resurrect from every nation a group of those who denied Our signs, and they shall be held in check.”[3]

In order to provide a good ground for proving the question of raj‘ah on the basis of these two verses, let us consider the following points:

1. The exegetes of the Qur’an [mufassirūn] think that these two verses talk about the Day of Resurrection and the first one discusses one of the pre-Resurrection signs just as Jalāl ad-Dīn as-Suyūṭī narrates in his exegesis [tafsīr], Ad-Durr al-Manthūr, on the authority of Ibn Abī Shaybah from Ḥudhayfah that khurūj ad-dābbah (in the first verse) is among the events which precede the Day of Resurrection.[4]

2. There is no doubt that on the Day of Resurrection, all human beings shall be mustered and not only a specific group from every community. Regarding the mustering of all human beings, the Qur’an states: ﴾ النَّاس لَّهُ مَّجْمُوعٌ يَوْمٌ ذَٰلِكَ ﴿ “That is a day on which all mankind will be gathered.”[5]

And in another place, it states:

﴿ وَيَوْمَ نُسَيِّرُ الْجِبَالَ وَتَرَى الْأَرْضَ بَارِزَةً وَحَشَرْنَاهُمْ فَلَمْ نُغَادِرْ مِنْهُمْ أَحَدًا ﴾

“The day We shall set the mountains moving and you will see the earth in full view, We shall muster them, and We will not leave out anyone of them.”[6]

Therefore, on the Day of Resurrection all human beings shall be gathered, and not only a specific group.

3. The second of the aforementioned two verses points clearly to the mustering of a particular group from every community, and not all human beings, as is stated below:

﴿ وَيَوْمَ نَحْشُرُ مِن كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ فَوْجًا مِّمَّن يُكَذِّبُ بِآيَاتِنَا فَهُمْ يُوزَعُونَ ﴾

“That day We shall resurrect from every nation a group of those who denied Our signs, and they shall be held in check.”[7]

This statement points clearly to the fact that not all human beings will be mustered.

Conclusion: These three short preliminaries show clearly that the mustering of a particular group of human beings who denied the divine signs, as deduced from the second verse, is an event that shall happen prior to the Day of Resurrection. This is because on the Day of Resurrection the mustering includes the entire humanity and it is not limited to a particular group.

This clarification proves the idea of the return of a group of human beings after death and before the Resurrection, and this phenomenon is referred to as raj‘ah.

On this basis, the Ahl al-Bayt of the Prophet (ṣ), who are equal to the Qur’an and who are interpreters of the divine revelation, elucidate this fact, and for the sake of brevity we quote only two of their sayings:

Imām aṣ-Ṣādiq (‘a) says:

القيامة. يوم و الكرّة يوم و u القائم يوم ثلاثة الله أيّام

“The Days of Allah are three: the day of (uprising of) Hadrat al-Qā’im (Imām al-Mahdī) (‘a), the day of ‘return’ and the Day of Resurrection.”

He (‘a) also says:

بكرّتنا. يؤمن لم من منّا ليس

“He who does not believe in our ‘return’ does not belong to us.”

At this juncture, it is proper to highlight two important