The Quran about the dead

In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful

In the Quran, God compares lifeless object with a dead body:

And those they invoke other than God create nothing, and they [themselves] are created. They are dead, not alive, and they do not perceive when they will be resurrected! (16:20-21)

Such an argument proved the vanity of the polytheists’ calls to the idols, for, like the dead, the idol could neither hear nor help a man.

People who are closed from the truth (kufr) and who do not hear the truth, likewise God compares with the dead:

Indeed, you will not make the dead hear, nor will you make the deaf hear the call when they have turned their backs retreating! (27:80)

So indeed, you will not make the dead hear, nor will you make the deaf hear the call when they turn their backs, retreating! (30:52)

Deaf to truth as well as the dead do not hear. Moreover, even in the time of Muhammad, as now, people appealed to the dead. God clearly gave definition of it:

And not equal are the living and the dead.

Indeed, God causes to hear whom He wills, but you cannot make hear those in the graves. (35:22)

The Quran told us neatly and clearly that the dead do not hear and cannot help people. Why? Because they have no connection with our world until the Day of Debt:

When death comes to one of them, he says, “My Lord, send me back That I might correct that which I left behind.” No! It is only a word he is saying; and behind them is an isthmus (barzah) until the day they are resurrected! (23:99-100)

Thus, dead person, even if he would like to return to this world, he could not do it. Souls of the dead people are in a transitional state (barzah) and are waiting for the resurrection, or rather for the appearance of the bodies to enter into them on the Day of Debt.

Some inattentive people are confused by the following excerpt:

And do not say about those who are killed in the way of God, “They are dead.” Rather, they are alive, but you perceive [it] not. (2:154)

• It does not talk about all people, but about dead witnesses of faith – “shahids”;

• It is clearly stated that we as living beings do not feel that they are alive, and so there is no connection with them either;

The question arises, why are they alive after death? Because they immediately get to God, bypassing the transitional state – “barzah” and bypassing the court immediately receive an inheritance from God:

And never think of those who have been killed in the way of God as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision! (3:169)

Because the prophets and shahids will not be judged, therefore, there is no point in not-resurrecting them until the Day of Debt and they are already in Paradise.

The result: the souls of the dead are in the transition (barzas), and the messengers, the righteous and the “shahids” already receive the provision from God in Paradise. But they are not connected with our world and cannot hear us or help us.