The Quran

قالوا رَبَّنا أَمَتَّنَا اثنَتَينِ وَأَحيَيتَنَا اثنَتَينِ فَاعتَرَفنا بِذُنوبِنا فَهَل إِلىٰ خُروجٍ مِن سَبيلٍ

Ali Unal

They will say: “Our Lord! You have made us die twice, and given us life twice,¹ so (we have become fully convinced of the truth of all that You have informed us of, and) we acknowledge our sins (of unbelief). Is there, then, any way to get out (so that we may believe and do good, righteous deeds)?”

Death means the detachment of the spirit from the body, or that the body and spirit exist separately from each other. Before everyone comes to the world, the particles that are destined to constitute their body exist in God’s Knowledge and are scattered throughout “nature.” The Qur’ān calls this condition death (2: 28; see note 27). Then God gives life to a body in the womb by “breathing” into it its spirit. This is the first instance of giving life. Thereafter, every soul, or the living self composed of the spirit and body, tastes death by God’s taking the spirit from the body either by Himself, or by employing the Angel of Death or the aids of this angel (see 32: 11, note 8). God will revive every dead person on the Day of Resurrection. That is, He will restore the bodies according to the conditions of the afterlife and return the spirits to them. This is the second instance of life. The Qur’ān states that the believers taste death only once (37: 58; 44: 56), so we can conclude that the believers will die once, but will be given life twice. However, this verse narrates to us that God will cause the people of Hell to die twice and He will revive them twice. So the death and revival mentioned in this verse concerning the people of Hell must be somehow different. When we consider verse 39: 68, which states, The Trumpet will be blown, and so all who are in the heavens and all who are on the earth will fall dead, except those whom God wills to exempt. Then it will be blown for the second time, and see, they have all stood upright, looking on (in anticipation) (see also note 22 on this verse), we can understand that the spirits of the unbelievers will die at the first sound of the Trumpet, and then be revived again to be returned to their restored bodies. In conclusion, the first death they taste is their departure from the world, and the second death is their spiritual death. The believers’ spirits will be exempt from this. Therefore, by saying that God causes the people of Hell to die twice, the verse is referring to their departure from the world and their spiritual death during the final destruction of the world, and by His giving them life twice, it is referring to the revival of their spirit and their being raised from the dead on the Resurrection Day. (God knows best.)