An Encounter with the Islamic Prophet and a Deceased Father in the Celestial Kaba in a Veridical Dream The NDE can be classified under the same category as the true or “veridical dream” in that both experiences provide the individual with a window into the world of the unseen. Both allow the experiencer to cross the threshold separating the earthly, material plane from the celestial, spiritual plane above, of which our realm is but a pale reflection. This threshold is crossed by the soul either through a momentary, fleeting experience of death, which begins with a disembodiment of the soul (sometimes initially experienced through the well-known OBE, the so-called “out-of-body experience”), or sleep, which the Prophet of Islam described as the “the sister of death.” It is no wonder then that certain powerful, moving, and significant dreams – the memory of which remain with the person an entire lifetime – bear striking resemblances to full-fledged NDEs: both reveal a message from the celestial realms of far-reaching existential relevance, and which may include teachings of guidance, admonishment, or comfort in a time of distress (sometimes after the death of a loved one). That NDErs sometimes experience vivid, veridical dreams following the NDE, as one of its aftereffects, provides further reason to classify both under the rubric of the same category. One such dream which resembles the NDE experience occurred to my cousin about four years ago, when he was a young boy of 11 – about 5 years after the death of his father (my uncle). Shortly before his veridical dream, my cousin had begun to recite a prayer regularly, given to him by his Quran teacher, through which he could have a true dream of the Prophet Muhammad. Prayers invoked to elicit visions of the Arabian Prophet not uncommon to the Islamic tradition. In his particular case, the prayer was to be recited in a specific fashion, at a particular time, and for a set duration prior to a particularly holy night. The most important element of the prayer was sincerity of intention. On the night on which the prayer was to have its effect, my cousin did in fact have the dream of the Arabian Prophet, and it was, as he would later describe it to me, one of the most vivid dreams I have ever heard of. The dream began with my cousin finding himself in the precincts of the Holy Sanctuary in Mecca – the Kaba – or more precisely, a celestial, archetypal version of it, with the sanctuary full of deceased souls. He then saw the Prophet of Islam slowly approaching on a celestial camel of sorts, with a beautiful shawl draped over his head, and with head bowed down. As the two met, the first thing my cousin noticed was that the droplets of his sweat smelt like musk (curiously, a feature also recorded in Islamic biographical sources). In excitement, my cousin asked, “Are you the Prophet of God?” “Subhanalla (Praise God!), I am,” he replied with a smile. My cousin then proceeded to tell him about his life, of his deceased father, and of the hardships his mother and brother faced following the father’s death. “I know of your pain,” the Prophet replied with affection. The Prophet then directed my cousin to a region of the celestial Sanctuary where he said he could find his father. On making his way to the area, he found not only his father but other deceased relatives (and only deceased relatives) all of whom were full of joy and seemingly without worry. He described his father as wearing the same kind of clothes he would on festive religious occasions when he was alive. There was a ritual prayer that was then held in the Kaba in which the Prophet recited the Quran with such beauty and power that everyone, the entire congregation in the sanctuary made of up of what seemed to be millions of souls, were moved to tears. The prayer itself was preceded by a ritual azan delivered by the disciple of the Prophet who in his own life was the official caller to prayer, and who incidentally my cousin’s brother was named after. Following the prayer, my cousin made his way back to the Prophet, where the Prophet told him that it was now his time to return to earth. When my cousin objected (a common motif in NDE literature), the Prophet assured him that he would one day return back to the celestial abode and the surrounding heavenly realms with both his brother and mother to be with his deceased father as well as the company of other loved ones including the Prophet himself. When my cousin insisted that he wanted to stay with the Prophet, he told him he would always be with him, and that “you can reach me through your Heart.” (My cousin was also shown different realms of Paradise, over a period of a time which he said seem to last like days.) When my cousin awoke from the dream right before the start of the dawn prayer (fajr), the first thing he noticed was a white cloud, vapour or light in the room which then slowly dissipated. The following class, when he informed his teacher of the dream, the Quran teacher was moved to tears. But the tears were not because of the vividness of the dream, nor due to the compassionate affection shown to him by the Prophet, but because he had himself had virtually the same dream, one in which he too found himself in the celestial Kaba in the company of the Prophet, surrounded by innumerable devotees preparing for prayer. The only difference was that the Quran teacher was able to interact with the deceased, unlike my cousin, who was only able to communicate with the Prophet. In other words, both the Quran teacher and my cousin had had an almost perfectly synchronized, overlapping dream, with similar contents, and on the same night, suggesting that it was more simply the product of the active imagination of a young boy subconsciously working through the pain of a lost father. The clarity and vividness of my cousin’s dream, a point which he specifically noted to me, also reminds one of the hyper-clarity of the NDE of which much has been written.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 17:49:05 +0000
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