of a spiritual nature. Hence the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said when describing those who place their trust in Allah:
“They do not ask others to recite healing invocations over them.”
The point is that he fears death and hopes to remain alive through the efforts of someone who recites healing invocations. Hence Allah says:
“And he realizes that it is the parting.”
Then He says:
“And one leg is entwined with the other.
To your Lord that Day will be the driving.”
This indicates that there is a soul which exists and subsists in its own right and is driven to its Lord. An accident inhering in something else cannot be driven, nor is the dead person’s body driven. This, then, is an explicit affirmation of a soul that leaves the body and is driven to its Lord, as stated in the widely transmitted hadiths concerning the taking of the believer’s soul and the disbeliever’s soul.
After this, alongside the warning He has already given, He describes the disbeliever, saying:
“He neither believed nor prayed.”
This does not mean that every one of these souls is like that. Likewise, Sūrat Qāf discusses the warning of the Resurrection, yet He also says in it:
“And the agony of death has come with the truth. That is what you were trying to evade.”
Then He says:
“And the Trumpet will be blown. That is the Day of the Warning.”
Thus He mentions both resurrections: the minor and the major. His words, “And the agony of death has come with the truth,” mean that it has brought the reward and punishment that follow death—the truth proclaimed by the messengers. He does not mean that it has brought the truth which is death itself, for death is common knowledge and has never been disputed. No one has ever said, “Death is unreal,” such that one would need to say, “It has come with the truth.”
As for His words, “That is what you were trying to evade,” although a person dislikes death, he knows that its angels will meet him. This is like His saying:
“And worship your Lord until certainty comes to you.”
And “certainty” is