we find no angels striking the dead, no snakes, no serpents, and no blazing fires! Nor do we see the grave stretched as far as one’s eye can reach, or closed in upon him; we find it exactly as we dug it, its dimensions neither increased nor diminished. So how could the grave become a garden from the gardens of Paradise or a pit from the pits of Hell?!
Our reply to this is several-fold:
First: The condition of the barzakh—the intermediate realm between this life and the next—is one of the unseen realities about which the prophets have informed us. Their reports are by no means rationally impossible; therefore they must be believed.
Second: The fire and the greenery that appear in the grave are not from the fire or vegetation of this world, so that those familiar with worldly fire and plants could perceive them. They are from the fire and greenery of the Hereafter and are far more intense than the fire of this life. The people of this world do not sense them, for God, exalted is He, shields the very earth and stones that cover and surround the deceased until they are hotter than the embers of this life, yet were the living to touch them they would feel nothing. The Lord’s power is broader and more wondrous than that.
When God wills to let some of His servants witness the punishment of the grave, He enables them to see it, while concealing it from others. Had all people perceived it, the purpose of moral responsibility and faith in the unseen would vanish, and they would stop burying one another. In the two Ṣaḥīḥs the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Had it not been that you would cease burying one another, I would have asked God to let you hear some of what I hear from the punishment of the grave.” Because this rationale does not apply to animals, they do hear and perceive it; the Messenger of God’s mule once swerved and almost threw him when it passed by a man who was being tormented in his grave. Seeing that fire in the grave is like seeing angels or jinn: it happens occasionally for whomever God wills to show it.
How can anyone who knows God and acknowledges His omnipotence find it strange that He should bring about events while diverting the sight of some of His creatures from them as a mercy and protection, for they could not bear to see or hear them? A human being’s sight and hearing are far too weak to endure witnessing the torment of the grave, and the secret