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Is it true that a person's "paper" falls forty days before their death, and do they feel the approach of their appointed time?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Indeed, a person's appointed time of death is among the unseen matters whose knowledge God Almighty has exclusively reserved. However, a person may sense the nearness of their death when afflicted by causes of demise. Some exegetes, regarding God Almighty's saying, "And not a leaf falls but that He knows it," have mentioned that there is a tree beneath the Throne for every creature, with a leaf on it. When a person's leaf falls, their soul departs. No specific period of forty days or otherwise has been determined for this, nor has any hadith مرفوع ( مرفوع: directly attributed to the Prophet) to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, been reported concerning this.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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