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Can the dead return to life after being buried, and what is the opinion regarding the book "He Who Lived After Death" by Abu Bakr Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Ubaid ibn Sufyan?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

A deceased person cannot return to the earthly life and live again as one burdened with religious obligations, because that contradicts Allah's sunnah (way) in His creation and the text of revelation. The Quranic verses and prophetic hadiths have indicated that the soul does not return to this world after death, as in the story of the martyr of Uhud who wished to return, to which the divine response was: "Indeed, it has already been decreed by Me that they will not return to it."

And the book "Man Ash Ba'da al-Mawt" (He Who Lived After Death) by Ibn Abi al-Dunya does not prove the reality of a deceased person returning to life, as most of its narrations speak only about the speech of the dead, not their living, and many of them are weak. As for what is authentic, it mostly occurred before actual death or was a divine miracle, like the miracles of the prophets.

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

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