لَعَلِّىٓ أَعْمَلُ صَٰلِحًا فِيمَا تَرَكْتُ ۚ كَلَّآ ۚ إِنَّهَا كَلِمَةٌ هُوَ قَآئِلُهَا ۖ وَمِن وَرَآئِهِم بَرْزَخٌ إِلَىٰ يَوْمِ يُبْعَثُونَ
21:96; 36:32.
Important Words:
برزخ means, a barrier; a bar; a thing that intervenes between any two things; an obstruction or a thing that separates two things; the interval from the time of death to the Day of Resurrection. The word is technically applied to the period or state from the day of death to the Day of Resurrection (Lane & Aqrab).
Commentary:
The word لعل (that) conveys the idea of doubt. As used here the word shows that the disbeliever will have been so deeply impressed by God’s Greatness and Majesty and his own insignificance that he dare not declare with certainty that he will make amends for what he had left undone in life on earth. He only expresses a hope that he will do righteous deeds if he were sent back to this world.
The word کلمة has been used in the verse, as at several other places in the Quran in the sense of a full sentence. The Holy Prophet also used the word in the sense of a complete sentence in a well-known hadith:
أصدق کلمة قالھا لبید، الا کل شیء ما خلا اللّٰه باطل
i.e. the truest sentence is the one which the poet Labid uttered and which is to the effect, "Everything besides God is subject to destruction." See also 4:172.
The verse incidentally disproves a commonly held belief that a man passes into Heaven or Hell immediately after his death. In fact after death he lives in برزخ which is an intermediate state of incomplete realization of the punishments or rewards of Hell or Heaven respectively or a state of preparation for their complete and full realization. The Quran has compared barzakh to the embryonic state and the resurrection to the birth of the fully developed soul.
21:96; 36:32.
Barzakh means, a barrier; or a thing that intervenes between any two things. The word is technically applied to the period or state from the day of death to the day of Resurrection (Lane). It is an intermediate state of incomplete realization of the punishments and rewards of Hell and Heaven. The Qur’an has compared it to the embryonic state and the Resurrection to the birth of the fully developed soul.