Bodily Resurrection and Spiritual Resurrection

An important question regarding the issue of the Resurrection is whether resurrection pertains only to the spirit or whether the human body becomes alive in the other world once more and whether man enters the new life with the same body and soul, of course a little better than before.

Some of the ancient philosophers believed only in a spiritual resurrection and considered our bodies as vehicles which contained our souls. They thought that after death we would no longer need this body; that is to say, at the time of our departure to the other world we would just throw our bodies aside.

However, some great Islamic scholars contend that the Resurrection pertains both to body and soul alike. It is true that death causes our bodies to disintegrate, but the Almighty God will put the tiny particles of our bodies together and dress them with a new life. This is what scholars mean by “the Resurrection of the body.” This is due to the fact that the resurrection of the spirit has been taken for granted by these scholars.

Thus, all the verses in the Holy Qur’¡n which deal with the Resurrection have in mind the resurrection of the body as well.

Bodily Resurrection in the Holy Qur’ªn

We have already referred to that nomadic Arab who showed the Prophet(s) a rotten piece of bone, asking him: who can revive this rotten bone? And we saw that the Prophet(s), taking his command from God, answered him in this fashion: The same Being who created this bone for the first time, is the same Being who has created the sky and the earth, He is the same Being who brings out fire from within a green tree. These verses can be read at the end of S£rah Y¡s¢n.

Elsewhere, of Resurrection the Holy Qur’¡n says:

On the Day, you shall leave your graves.⁽[1]⁾

And we know that the graves are places where bodies are buried, not souls.

Basically, the unbelievers wondered how it was possible for our bodies which disintegrate and disappear to return to life once again:

وَقَالُوا أَءِذَا ضَلَلْنَا فِي الأَرْضِ أَءِنَّا لَفِي خَلْقٍ جَدِيدٍ؟

And they say: What! When we have become lost in the earth, shall we then certainly be a new creation? [Qur’¡n 32:10]

And the Holy Qur’¡n replies: God who created everything for the first time has the Power to do it again.

What! Do they not consider how Allah originates the creation, then reproduces it? Surely, that is easy to Allah. [Qur’¡n 29:19]

An Arab of the pre-Islamic era had asked:

How could this man promise you that upon your death and after the disintegration of your bodies you would return to life once more? What! Does he threaten you that when you are dead and become dust and bones that you shall then be brought forth? [Qur’¡n 23:35]

All these interpretations of the Holy Qur’¡n indicate the fact that the Honorable Prophet of Islam always talked of the Resurrection of the body and the near-sighted unbelievers wondered how this could ever happen. We have seen that the Holy Qur’¡n presented some examples of the Resurrection of the body, such as the rebirth of the dead plants to let them know of God’s Power to give new life to dead bodies.

It would be therefore impossible for a Muslim who knows even a little bit of the Holy Qur’¡n to deny the Resurrection of the body. Such a denial would be the denial of the principle of the Resurrection in the eyes of God.

Rational Examples for the Resurrection of the Body

Besides these arguments, our wisdom tells us that our souls and bodies are two different entities related to each other; both nourish and become perfect, and naturally need each other for a later eternal life.

These two entities, during the purgatory or Intermediate state, are separated from each other temporarily. However, this separation for a longer duration would be impossible since the body without the soul is imperfect, and the soul without the body would be defective, as well. Our soul is the commander which forces us to move around, and our body is obedient to the soul. No commander could work without obedient servants.

Since the soul occupies a higher position than it had in this world, the body has to improve proportionally and this happens naturally. In other words, our bodies lack the malformations and defects which they have in this world.

Thus, the body and the soul are like twins, they are a pair so resurrection could not have only a spiritual or bodily manifestation.

Besides, the law of justice says: Resurrection should exist for both the soul and the body since anyone who commits a sin has carried out this sin with his body and soul together; therefore, both should be punished. By the same token, if a man has done anything good, both his body and soul should be rewarded. This view observes the law of justice.

Questions Related to the Resurrection of the Body

Some scholars have raised some questions related to this topic some of which will be dealt with here:

1. According to research by natural scientists, the body of a man changes several times within his lifetime. This resembles a pool of water which changes constantly due to the inflow it regularly receives.

2. The change of body tissues takes place once every seven years. Therefore, we change several times during our lifetime.

Now this question is raised: Which one of these bodies will return to hold our soul?

This is our answer: The last body will return, since in the above verses we saw that God will revive us from our rotten bones. This means that our last body will return. Our rising from the graves, too, embodies the fact that our last body will rise from the grave.

The point to ponder on is that our last body contains all the traits and structural specifications it had during our whole life.

In other words, our decayed bodies or skeletons will preserve all the physical characteristics the body had during its lifetime, because the previous body gives its specific traits to the next one. Therefore, our last body will possess all our necessary traits.

3. Some researchers make the point that since with death our bodies disintegrate and become absorbed in the earth these particles of our bodies become parts of plants or the bodies of other human beings, so what would happen on the Day of Resurrection?

Several answers have been advanced for this important question, we will present a simplified version of them here.

Basically, those particles which have entered the body of another human being would go to the first body from which they have come [the verses in the above sections vividly indicate this fact].

Then this question would arise: Would the second body be now defective? We answer: Not necessarily, since the body from which the particles were taken would be reduced in size.

Thus, neither the first body, nor the second one vanishes. The only thing which happens is that the second body is reduced in size and this does not create any problem, because we are aware that at the Resurrection, our bodies become perfect and that shortcomings and defects vanish altogether in just the same way that a small child grows while his personality remains intact. Defective bodies rise in perfect shape at the Resurrection.