What is purgatory?
Mu' meneen Brothers
and Sisters,
As Salaam Aleikum wa
Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh. (May Allah's Peace, Mercy and Blessings be
upon all of you)
One of our
brothers/sisters has asked this question:
Dear Brother,
What is purgatory?
Do we Muslims believe in it?
(There may be some grammatical and spelling errors in the above statement. The forum does not change anything from questions, comments and statements received from our readers for circulation in confidentiality.)
Answer:
What is purgatory?
In the name of Allah, We praise
Him, seek His help and ask for His forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides none
can misguide, and whoever He allows to fall astray, none can guide them aright.
We bear witness that there is no one (no idol,
no person, no grave, no
prophet, no imam, no dai,
nobody!) worthy of worship but Allah Alone, and we bear witness that
Muhammad(saws) is His slave-servant and the seal of His Messengers.
Purgatory is basically a
Christian concept which means a supposed place or state of expiation of petty
sins after death and before entering Paradise.
Islam, on the other hand
advocates that for the ones who believed and did good righteous deeds in the
life of the world, and if the weight of the good deeds is heavier on the Day of
Judgement, the Merciful Lord will forgive the petty sins of the person and
enter him into Paradise.
For the ones, whose evil deeds are heavier on the Day of
Judgment, they will have a severe
accounting in the Just Court of Allah Subhanah.
Islam also advocates that there
is a place or state, where ones soul is kept after death and before the Day of
Judgement. This place is known as
Barzakh, but this is not a place or state of expiation of sins as believed
in the Christian dogma. It is
basically a pre-cursor to the state of the person before his actual accounting
on the Day of Judgement.
We have written a detailed
article regarding Barzakh, which we are attaching for your reference.
Whatever written of Truth and
benefit is only due to Allahs Assistance and Guidance, and whatever of error
is of me. Allah Alone Knows Best and He
is the Only Source of Strength.
Your Brother in
Islam,
Burhan
Wister