Akhirah

Ākhirah (الآخرة, "the Last," "the Hereafter") is, in Islamic theology, belief in the life after death and one of the six articles of faith (arkān al-īmān) enumerated in the Ḥadīth Jibrīl alongside belief in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and al-qadar (divine decree). The Qur'an pairs faith in Allah with faith in al-yawm al-ākhir (the Last Day) in numerous verses, including Sūrah al-Baqarah 2:4 and 2:177, making it doctrinally inseparable from tawḥīd. Denial of the Hereafter is treated in the Qur'an as the defining error of the disbelievers (e.g. Sūrah al-Jāthiyah 45:24), and affirmation of it is the moral premise for accountability, since reward and punishment unfulfilled in this transient world (al-dunyā) are perfected in the next.

The doctrine unfolds through a sequenced eschatology. It begins with al-mawt (death) and the questioning in the grave (ʿadhāb al-qabr or its comfort), associated in ḥadīth with the angels Munkar and Nakīr. It proceeds to Yawm al-Qiyāmah (the Day of Resurrection), inaugurated by the blowing of the trumpet (al-ṣūr) by the angel Isrāfīl, the bodily resurrection (al-baʿth), the gathering (al-ḥashr), and the reckoning (al-ḥisāb) in which deeds are weighed on the Balance (al-mīzān) and the record of deeds is handed to the right or left hand (Sūrah al-Ḥāqqah 69:19–25). Believers cross the bridge (al-ṣirāṭ) to Paradise; the Ḥawḍ (Pool) of the Prophet and his intercession (shafāʿah) feature in Sunni creeds such as al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah. The final states are Jannah, described sensorially in Sūrah al-Raḥmān and al-Wāqiʿah, and Jahannam, with the beatific vision of God (ruʾyat Allāh) held by Ahl al-Sunnah to be the supreme reward.

Theological controversy surrounds the doctrine's interpretation. The Muʿtazila, holding to al-waʿd wa al-waʿīd (the promise and the threat), argued that the grave sinner is eternally punished, while the Ashʿaris and Māturīdis affirmed that monotheist sinners may be punished temporarily then admitted to Paradise through divine mercy and prophetic intercession. The philosophers, notably Ibn Sīnā, leaned toward a purely spiritual resurrection, a position al-Ghazālī condemned as unbelief in his Tahāfut al-Falāsifah (c. 1095) precisely because it denied bodily resurrection (al-maʿād al-jismānī). Modernist exegetes have at times allegorised the imagery, but orthodox creed insists on a literal bodily Hereafter.

For CSS Islamic Studies, Ākhirah recurs in the section on the articles of faith (ʿaqāʿid) and Qur'anic teachings on the moral order. Examiners commonly ask candidates to explain its place among the six pillars of īmān, to trace the stages of the Day of Judgement with Qur'anic citation, or to discuss its role as the foundation of Islamic ethics and accountability. Strong answers cite specific sūrahs, distinguish the theological schools, and link belief in the Hereafter to social justice and individual responsibility in the present life.