What happens to the soul between death and the Day of Judgement?

The soul does not rest as if in cold storage. It lives on with awareness and develops over a long time into a new form, as a child grows in the womb, in the direction its deeds on earth have already set.

Many people imagine the time after death as a long wait in which nothing happens. Islam teaches otherwise. When a person dies, the body decays, but the soul does not lose its awareness. It soon learns in which direction it will continue to develop.

The Holy Qur’an compares the new creation to the first. A child in the womb is not at rest; it grows step by step until it has an entirely new form. In the same way a new, spiritual form grows out of the soul over a long period. It cannot be compared with our present body, as the third verse above suggests.

What we do here shapes this new life. Our deeds are like the seed from which it grows. If that seed is healthy, the soul feels ever more at ease as its awareness grows. If it is diseased, the soul becomes ever more restless. So paradise and hell already begin to be felt along this path.

How long does it last? It is a very long time. Yet the Holy Qur’an says that later it will seem to people like a day or part of a day. We know this from life. The further back a period of our life lies, the shorter it seems, just as an object looks smaller the further away it is.

For us this has a very practical meaning. The future of the soul is not decided only after death. It is being formed now, through a pure heart, love for God and good deeds.