What does gathering means in islam? What will happen after death?
Ḥashr means “to gather, to come together”. As a term, it means the gathering of people by Almighty Allah to bring them to account after the end of the world. The place where people gather is called Maḥshar or Araṣāt.
After angels, jinn, and humans are resurrected, all human beings, old and young, sane and insane, will be gathered together. Animals will also be resurrected.[1] However, after animals get their rights that concern them, they will turn back into the soil. Seeing their situation, unbelievers wish, “Oh, would that I were mere dust!”[2]
In that gathering, everyone will go and follow whomever they believed and followed in the life of this world, and they will gather together. Believers, hypocrites, sinners, and unbelievers all will gather together with their leaders. In the Qur’an, the following is stated about the gathering of the leader and his followers, “One day We shall call together all human beings with their (respective) leaders.”[3], and “Pharaoh will go before his people on the Day of Judgment, and lead them into the Fire (as cattle are led to water): But woeful indeed will be the place to which they are led!”[4]
There are many verses in the Qur’an that talk about the gathering on Judgment Day. We will give the following verses as examples: “One day He will gather them together: (It will be) as if they had tarried but an hour of a day: they will recognize each other: assuredly those will be lost who denied the meeting with Allah and refused to receive true guidance.”[5], and “The Day that the wrong-doer will bite at his hands, he will say, ‘Oh! would that I had taken a (straight) path with the Messenger! Ah! woe is me! Would that I had never taken such a one for a friend!’”[6]
Judgment Day is a very troubled, fearful, and terrifying day. No one will be even able to take care of their relatives because they will have their own problems. On that day, the faces of the believers will shine, the faces of the unbelievers will turn black, and the person will flee from his own brother, mother, father, wife, and children.[7] The Prophet stated that every person will be resurrected as he died and that he will be resurrected barefoot and like his first creation.[8]
When people gather to see their accounts, the “books of deeds” will be distributed, in which their deeds in the world are recorded by angel scribes. The following is stated in the Qur’an about this book of deeds, “And the Book (of Deeds) will be placed (before you); and you will see the sinful in great terror because of what is (recorded) therein; they will say, ‘Ah! woe to us! what a Book is this! It leaves out nothing small or great, but takes account thereof!” They will find all that they did, placed before them: And not one will thy Lord treat with injustice.’”[9]
Records of deeds are given to the people of Paradise from the right, and to those of Hell to the left or from the back. Those whose books are given from the right are called “Aṣḥāb Yamīn”, and those who are given from the left are called “Aṣḥāb Shimāl”.
People will be held to account by Almighty Allah after they take their book of deeds in their hands and see that what they did in the world is written down to the smallest detail. Meanwhile, apart from the written documents, human organs and animate and inanimate beings on earth will also give witness to what the human being did.
The Prophet said that during the account, people will be asked about five things: a) Where did they spend their lives, b) How did they spend their youth, c) Where did they earn their wealth, d) Where did they spend it, and e) Whether they applied what they knew into their lives.[10] It is reported in various hadiths that believers will easily answer these questions, whereas the unbelievers will be subjected to vigilant and meticulous questioning.[11]
[1] Al-Anʿām, 6: 38; al-Takwīr, 81: 5; al-Naba’, 78: 40.[2] Al-Naba’, 78: 40.[3] Al-’Isrā, 17: 71.[4] Hūd, 11: 98.[5] Yunus, 10: 45.[6] Al-Furqān, 25: 27-28.[7] Abasa, 80: 34-42.[8] Al-Bukhari, Riqāq, 45; Muslim, Jannah, 14, 19; al-Tirmidhī, Tafsīr, 18.[9] Al-Kahf, 18: 49.[10] Al-Tirmidhī, Qiyamah, 1.[11] Al-Bukhari, Riqāq, 49, Maẓalim, 2; Muslim, Zakāt, 20, Jannah, 18.
Source: Basic Islamic Principles (ʿilmi ḥāl) According to the Four Sunni Schools With Evidence From The Sources of Islamic Law, Prof. Hamdi Döndüren, Erkam Publications