Nature of Death:Shahid Motahhari

Nature of Death:
What is death? Is it destruction, annihilation, and non-existence or is it a change, a development and a shifting from one world to another?
This is a question which has always engaged man's attention. Every one is keen either to find out an answer to it direct or to accept an answer already given.
By virtue of being Muslims we would like to draw the answer to this question from the Holy Qur'an and have faith in what the Qur'an has said in this respect.
The Qur'an has its own explanation regarding the nature of death. It has used the word, 'tawaffi' in this connection.
This word means to receive in full. In 14 verses the Qur'an has used this expression. All these verses, show that from the Qur'anic point of view death means gathering and receiving into custody. In other words man at the time of his death gets into the custody of the Divine authorities, who receive him in full. From this expression the following points may be inferred:
(i) Death does not mean annihilation and obliteration. It is just a shifting from one world to another world and from one stage of life to another stage. Human life continues after death, though in a different form.
(ii) What actually constitutes man and his self is not his body and his physical and ancillary systems, which gradually decay and decompose in this very world. What really constitutes his personality and ego is that which has been described by the Qur'an as 'self' and occasionally as soul.
(iii) Man's soul or his 'self' is the real constituent of his personality. Man is immortal because his soul is immortal. His soul rests and exists at a horizon above the horizon of matter and material things. Although it is an outcome of the evolution of the essence of natural phenomena which is transformed into the soul as the result of its evolution, its horizon is changed and it becomes a thing of another world which is extra-natural. With the death the soul shifts to a different category and class, that is the class of soul. In other words this extra-material reality is taken back and received into angelic custody.
The verses which deal with the genesis and are not concerned with the other worldly life, the Qur'an has advanced the point that man is a reality belonging to an extra-material class. The Quran in respect of Adam, the first man says: "I have breathed into him of My spirit."