VIEW OF HEREAFTER AND DEATH IN ISLAM IN COMPARISON WITH JAPANESE BELIEFS

İDİRİS DANIŞMAZ*

ABSTRACT

It is not an exaggeration to say that contemporary society has been going through one of its hard
times in witnessing heavy casualties by either man-made disasters such as internal wars and conflicts
or by recent large-scale natural disasters occurring throughout the world. The case of the civil war in
Syria has been the biggest humanitarian crisis in our times, in terms of the number of casualties that
is estimated to reach half a million, which equals approximately 10 % of the total population of the
country (as of February 2016), according to a survey1. In Japan, which had been believed to be one of
the countries most prepared for earthquakes, especially for Tsunami, 18,456 people (including those
missing) lost their lives in the “Great East Japan Earthquake”, which occurred on 11th March 2011.
During and after such major events, one of the challenges is how to face the social and physiological
effects of large numbers of deaths, and cope with the grief of individuals caused by the loss of their
loved ones alongside with the physical damage caused by the disasters. In such circumstances, “View
of Hereafter and Death (hereinafter ‘VHD’)” can help the war bereaved people and disaster survivors
when dealing with the pain of the deaths of other people. It may also help individuals in coping with
how to live with fear of their own death.VHD, as a descriptive term, can be defined as a thought or belief system which includes answers
to the two difficult questions of the humanity, which are: 1) what is mankind (origin of human being),
and 2) where do humans come from and where are they going after death?
Although many people rely on the knowledge provided by VHD, the understanding of VHD
varies from religion to religion, and its explanation differs from time to time, especially after big events
or accidents in a certain society. Hence, the view of life and death among the victims of the conflicts
in the Middle East today and the survivors of the big disasters might have changed. However, this
paper will not deal with the perspectival transformation on VHD since the process is ongoing and all
dimensions of perception cannot be grasped now until case studies on different societies and fieldwork
researches on different areas are done in the future. Instead, this paper attempts to shed light on VHD
in Islam in comparison with Japanese people in general in order to infer how the war bereaved people
of the Middle East and the disaster survivors in the post-Great East Japan Earthquake society in Japan
might deal with the deaths of large numbers of people in general, and of their family members in
particular.
This paper consists of four chapters excluding the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter
presents the definition of VHD in general, and the diversity of the notion of life, death and hereafter
in relation to the cultural and religious difference, and even time difference. The second chapter deals
with VHD in Islam and in Japanese beliefs, and rough comparison between them. The third chapter
— “Life after death” — further describes different beliefs about death and especially life after death
through the case of Islam and Japanese people. The final chapter discusses the “reality” of hereafter in
VHD.
It can be said that this paper provides an overview of VHD in Islam and Japanese beliefs. Some of
the primary findings from the research of this paper can be summarized as follows:
Firstly, the reality or existence of the hereafter notion is recognized by the Japanese religions
(Buddhism and Shinto) in general the same way as Islam does, despite some major or minor differences
in the explanation of hereafter among them.
Secondly, despite fear of death and worry about hereafter, Japanese people as well as Muslims
tend to become positive about life and death after thinking and talking about death. On the other hand,
as some surveys reveal, the majority of Japanese people neither believe in the life of hereafter, nor have
interest in the notion of hereafter per se. However, since VHD can contribute positively to the world
view of individuals, and even help to build up morality of the society, mitigating this indifference is
the task that this monograph tries to attract the attention of all interested parties to, and come up with
a solution for. Otherwise, there might be risks of disorder in society and erosion of values in case of
unconvincing VHD, which may cause the loss of one’s sense of the meaning of life, since individuals
would go extreme ways by ending their own lives and, in worst cases, would take others’ lives as well
by terrorism if they lose their hopes and believe that there will not be another life after death which
reunifies the assaulter and the victims to be judged evenly by God.
Therefore, in order to sustain the inner peace of individuals and the harmony of the human
society, religious people and thinkers should find solutions to the issues related to VHD, whether raised
locally or globally, by comparing and studying other people’s understandings of VHD, and if necessary,
to revise their own perspective of life and death.