The grave is not the final resting place

 

The grave is not the final resting place

Often in the newspapers and on the news, when a person has died and been buried, they say that he has gone to his final resting place. Is the grave the final resting place?.

Praise be to Allaah.  

Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen said in Tafseer Juz’ Amma (p. 117): 

The grave is not the final abode, rather it is a stage on the journey. A Bedouin heard a man reciting the verse (interpretation of the meaning): 

“The mutual rivalry (for piling up of worldly things) diverts you,

 Until you visit the graves (i.e. till you die)”

[al-Takaathur 102:1-2] 

The Bedouin said, “By Allaah, the visitor does not stay forever.” 

The Bedouin, by his innate common sense, understood that after the grave comes something else that will be the final abode, because as is well known, the visitor visits and leaves. Hence we know that what we read in the newspapers, “So and so has passed away and gone to his final resting place” is a serious mistake, which implies disbelief in Allaah and in the Last Day, because if you regard the grave as the final resting place, this means that there is nothing after that. The one who believes that the grave is the final resting place and that there is no abode after that is a kaafir, for the final abode or resting place is either Paradise or Hell.

Ibn ‘Uthaymeen said in Tafseer Juz’ ‘Amma (p. 117)