and in the punishment of the grave for those who merit it, and in the questioning by Munkar and Nakir in one’s grave about one’s Lord, one’s religion, and one’s Prophet, just as the reports from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ have described.

The fact of death is uncontested. What some of humanity do deny, however, is the Angel of Death and his assistants. Yet belief in the angels is one of the fundamental pillars of Islam, affirmed by the Quran and the Sunnah; whoever denies the existence of angels in general, or of a single angel in particular, is a disbeliever, for he has rejected a pillar of faith.

Shaykh al-Islam remarked in al-ʿAqīdah al-Wāsiṭiyyah that faith in the Last Day includes everything that comes after death: the bliss or torment of the grave, the resurrection, the presentation before Allah, the reckoning, the Balance, the dispersal of the scrolls, and Paradise and Hellfire. Whoever denies any of these cannot be considered a believer in the Last Day.

As for the Last Day and the unseen matters it contains—realities beyond the reach of our intellect and speculation—we rely solely on what is found in the Book and the Sunnah. We do not venture into these matters, nor do we speak about them without proof.

The grave is a barzakh, a barrier between this world and the Hereafter: “Behind them lies a barrier until the Day they are resurrected” (Q 23:100). The grave is a waiting station; thereafter people move on to the resurrection and the reckoning. Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751 AH) noted that the stages of existence are three:

1. The abode of this world, the sphere in which deeds are performed and earnings—good or evil—are amassed.