The Quran

185

Preface

كُلُّ نَفسٍ ذائِقَةُ المَوتِ ۗ وَإِنَّما تُوَفَّونَ أُجورَكُم يَومَ القِيامَةِ ۖ فَمَن زُحزِحَ عَنِ النّارِ وَأُدخِلَ الجَنَّةَ فَقَد فازَ ۗ وَمَا الحَياةُ الدُّنيا إِلّا مَتاعُ الغُرورِ

Yusuf Ali

Every soul shall have a taste of death:¹ And only on the Day of Judgment shall you be paid your full recompense. Only he who is saved far from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have attained the object (of Life): For the life of this world is but goods and chattels of deception.²

The soul will not die; but the death of the body will give a taste of death to the soul when the soul separates from the body. The soul will then know that this life was but a probation. And seeming inequalities will be adjusted finally on the Day of Judgment (Cf. 21:35 and 29:57).
Cf. Longfellow’s Psalm of Life: “All this world’s a fleeting show, For man’s illusion given”. The only Reality will be when we have attained our final goal.