Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Albert Gérard, African Language Lit-

eratures (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents, 1981); 

Kenneth W. Harrow, “Islamic Literature in Africa.” 

In  The History of Islam in Africa, edited by Nehemia 

Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels (Athens: Ohio Uni-

versity Press, 2000); Kenneth W. Harrow, ed., Faces of 

Islam in African Literature (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heine-

mann, 1991); John William Johnson, Thomas A. Hale, 

and Stephen Belcher, Oral Epics from Africa (Blooming-

ton: Indiana University Press, 1997).

afterlife

 

(Arabic: 

al-akhira)

Afterlife beliefs are concerned with the question 

of what happens to a person after physical 

death

.

This is one of the enduring subjects of Islamic 

belief and religious thought, which first devel-

oped in the seventh century under the influence 

of native Arabian religion, Judaism, Christianity, 

and other Middle Eastern religions. On the basis 

of the q

Uran

, hadith, and the teachings of reli-

gious scholars, most Muslims believe that God 

determines when each person will be born and 

die and that on J

Udgment

  d

ay

 he will resurrect 

everyone in the body and judge each according to 

that person’s beliefs and actions. He will reward 

good people with eternal life in 

paradise

, where 

they will enjoy heavenly comforts and happiness. 

Evil people will be sent to the F

ire

, where they 

will endure horrible tortures and punishments. 

Eventually, many of the people of the Fire will be 

allowed to join the blessed in paradise.

During the later Middle Ages, people specu-

lated more about what happens in the time 

between death and resurrection. Popular beliefs 

about spirits of the dead combined with Muslim 

theological ideas, which resulted in the develop-

ment of doctrines about an intermediate stage 

in the afterlife known as the barzakh, where the 

dead experience a preliminary judgment at the 

hands of the angels Munkar and Nakir and a 

preview of their rewards and punishments. The 

souls of martyrs who died in battle were believed 

to go directly to paradise during this time. Many