KHUTAB III - 22. PROF. ARTHUR (ABDULLAH) ALLISON

22. PROF. ARTHUR (ABDULLAH) ALLISON

          On the 16^th of March 1979, (to be precise, 27 years and 3 months ago), a dialogue was being conducted between the Muslim scholar K.H. Bahaudin Mudhary and Antonius Widuri at Sumenep, the capital of the island of Madura in Indonesia. It was the 8^th evening of the dialogue which lasted for 9 evenings, resulting in the conversion of Antonius Widuri to Islam. On that night Anonius Widuri stated that there were many Indonesian Muslims who converted to Christianity, but K.H. Bahaudin Mudhary said that they were not scholars who converted as the result of study and research; but poor people who were in a miserable condition. Antonius Widuri could not name any Muslim scholar who converted to Christianity. Two days later Antonius Widuri declared his conversion to Islam in an evening ceremony. Sadly, that year 1979 K.H. Bahaudin Mudhry passed away at the age of 58.

          One of many scholars who found and embraced Islam through research was Prof. Arthur Allison. He was Head of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of London. He was also President of British Society for Psychological and Spiritual Studies. In September 1985 he was invited to attend the First International Conference on Medical Inimitability in the Qur’ān held in Cairo, Egypt. In this conference he presented two papers: (1) on psychological and spiritual methods of therapy in the light of the Qur’ān; (2) on sleep and death in the light of the Qur’ānic verse sūrat al-Zumar 39:42, in collaboration with Dr. Muhammad Yahyá Sharaf. The verse runs as follows:

اللَّهُ يَتَوَفَّى الْأَنْفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا وَالَّتِي لَمْ تَمُتْ فِي مَنَامِهَا فَيُمْسِكُ الَّتِي قَضَى عَلَيْهَا الْمَوْتَ

 وَيُرْسِلُ الْأُخْرَى إِلَى أَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى إِنَّ فِي ذَلِكَ لَآَيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ (الزمر:٤٢)

It is Allah that takes the souls (of men) at death; and those that die not (He takes) during their sleep; those on whom He has passed the decree of death, He keeps back (from returning to life), but the rest He sends

 (to their bodies) for a term appointed. Verily in this are signs for

 those who reflect. (Q. 39:42, A.Y. Ali’s translation).

 Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s explanation of this verse is as follows:

اللَّهُ يَتَوَفَّى الْأَنْفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا “Allah takes the souls (of men) at death” means that “in death we surrender our physical life, but our soul does not die; it goes back to a plane of existence in which it is more conscious of the realities of the spiritual world.

What is sleep? As far as animal life is concerned it is the cessation of the working of the nervous system, though other animal functions, such as digestion, growth and the circulation of the blood continue, possibly at a different pace. It is the response of the nervous system, and in this respect it is common to man and animals, and perhaps even to plants, if, as is probable, plants have a nervous system. The mental process (and certainly volition) are also suspended in sleep, except that in ordinary dreams there is a medley of recollections, which often present vividly to our consciousness thing that do not or cannot happen in nature as we know it in our coordinated minds. But there is another kind of dream which is rarer-one in which the dreamer sees things as they actually happen, backward or forwards in time, or in which gifted individuals see spiritual truths otherwise imperceptible to them. How can we explain this? It is suggested that our soul or personality,- that something which is above our animal life – is then in a plane of spiritual existence akin to physical death when we are nearer to Allah. In poetic imagery, Sleep is the “twin brother to Death.”

Sleep being twin-brother to Death, our souls are for the time being released from the bondage of the flesh. Allah takes them for the time being. If, as some do, we are to die peacefully in sleep, our soul does not come back to the physical body, and the latter decays and dies. If we have still some period of life to fulfill according to Allah’s decree, our soul comes back to the body, and we resume our functions in this life.

If we contemplate these things, we can see clearly many spiritual truths, e.g. (1) that our bodily life and death are not the whole story of our existence; (2) that in our bodily life we may be dead to the spiritual world, and in our bodily death, may be our awakening to the spiritual world; (3) that our nightly sleep, besides performing the function or rest to our physical life, gives us a fore-taste of what we call death, which does not end our personality; and (4) that the Resurrection is not more wonderful than our daily rising from Sleep, the “twin-brother of Death”.

          Another verse dealing with life, sleep and death is as follows:

هُوَ الَّذِي يَتَوَفَّاكُمْ بِاللَّيْلِ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا جَرَحْتُمْ بِالنَّهَارِ ثُمَّ يَبْعَثُكُمْ فِيهِ لِيُقْضَى أَجَلٌ

 مُسَمًّى ثُمَّ إِلَيْهِ مَرْجِعُكُمْ ثُمَّ يُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِمَا كُنْتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ (الأنعام :٦٠)

 It is He Who takes your souls by night (when you are asleep),

 and has knowledge of all that you have done by day, then He

 raises (wakes) you up again that a term appointed (your life

 period) be fulfilled, then (in the end) to Him will be your

 return. Then He will inform you of that

 which you used to do.  (Q. 6:60).

Ali’s comment on this verse is this:

As the rest of His Creation is subject to His Law and Plan, so is man’s life in every particular and at every moment, awake or asleep. The mystery of Sleep – “the twin brother to death” – is called the taking of our soul by Him, with the record of all we have done in our waking moments, and this record sometimes appears to us in confused glimpses in dreams. By day we awaken again to our activities, and so it goes on until we fulfill the term of our life appointed for this earth. Then comes the other Sleep (death) with the longer record of our Day (Life); and then in the end comes the Resurrection and Judgment, at which we see everything clearly and not as in dream, for that is the final Reality.                                                                           

Prof. Allison as an expert in psychology and spiritual studies explained this verse and said that there is similarity between dreaming and death as well as the return of the soul to the physical body when one is waking up. The idea of the separation of the soul from the body in sleep and death is in line with the study of parapsychology. This verse convinced him of the truth of Islam that this verse must have been from Allah to Prophet Muhammad. At the end of the conference Prof. Allison proclaimed his conversion to Islam before the Rector of al-Azhar, Shaykh Jād al-H.aqq, the Ministry of Awqāf, and changed his name from “Arthur” to “Abdullah” Allison.

In an interview with the Arabic weekly al-Muslimūn Prof. Allison said that as President of British Society for Psychological and Spiritual Studies he studied Hinduism, then Buddhism, and Islam. He found the great difference among world religions, and finally chose Islam.

Besides citing āyat al-kursī the Prophet taught us to say the du‘ā’ (supplication) before going to sleep بِاسْمِكَ اللَّهُمَّ أَمُوتُ وَأَحْيَا  In Your name, O Allah, I die and live” and when we wake up to thank Him saying, الَْحَمْدُ لِلهِ الَّذِىْ أَحْيَانَا بَعْدَ مَا أَمَاتَنَا وَإَلَيْهِ النُّشُوْر (رواه  البخاري و أحمد)  “Praise be to Allah Who has revived us after our death (namely, sleep), and to Him we shall return (on the Resurrection Day).” (Reported by Bukhārī and Aḥmad) indicating that “sleep is the twin-brother of death.” It happened that people died in their sleep. (ANUMA, 16 June, 06)