The Quran

الَّذي خَلَقَ المَوتَ وَالحَياةَ لِيَبلُوَكُم أَيُّكُم أَحسَنُ عَمَلًا ۚ وَهُوَ العَزيزُ الغَفورُ

Ali Unal

He Who has created death and life,¹ so that He may try you (and demonstrate to yourselves) which of you is better in deeds. And He is the All-Glorious with irresistible might (Whose will none can frustrate), the All-Forgiving (Who forgives many of His servants’ sins so that they learn from being tested);

Death is not the end of a life or the removal of life from living things or beings. Rather, it is something that is created, like life. God creates death in a living thing or being and so that thing or being dies. Since God’s creation is at all times beautiful, death is also beautiful. This is because all human beings have an intrinsic feeling of eternity, and so feel imprisoned in the narrow confines of the material world as they yearn for eternity. Whoever is aware of his or her conscious nature will hear it pronouncing eternity, over and over again. If we were given the whole universe, we would still hunger for the eternal life for which we have been created. This natural inclination toward eternal happiness comes from an objective reality: the existence of eternal life and our desire for it. Death is the door that opens onto eternity.
Those who believe and live righteous lives are greeted with opened windows from the places reserved for them in Paradise. The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, stated that the souls of the righteous are drawn out as gently as flowing water from a pitcher. Even better than that, martyrs do not feel the agony of death and do not even know that they are dead. Instead, they consider themselves as being transferred to a better world and enjoy perfect happiness.
Although death seems to bring decomposition, extinguish life, and destroy pleasure, in fact, it represents a Divine discharge from the heavy duties of worldly life. It is no more than a change of residence, a transference of the body—an invitation to, and the beginning of, everlasting life. It releases us from the hardships of this worldly life, which is a turbulent, suffocating, narrow dungeon that gradually becomes harder with old age and illness, and admits us to the infinitely wide circle of the mercy of Eternal, Beloved One. There, we may enjoy the everlasting company of our beloved ones and the consolation of a happy, eternal life.
The world is continually enlivened through acts of creation and death. Death leads to a more perfect life. The dying of plants, the simplest level of life, proves itself a work of Divine artistry, like their lives, but one that is even more perfect and better designed. When the seed of a fruit dies in the soil, it seems to decompose and rot away. But in reality, it undergoes a perfect chemical process, passing through predetermined stages of re-formation, and ultimately grows again into an elaborate, new tree. So a seed’s death is really the beginning of a new tree— a new, more perfect and elaborate life. Since the death of fruit, vegetables, and meat in our stomachs causes them to rise to the degree of human life, in this sense their death can be regarded as more perfect than their lives. Since the dying of plants is so perfect and serves so great a purpose, our deaths, given that we are the highest form of life, must be much more perfect and serve a still greater purpose. Once we have gone underground, we certainly will be brought into eternal life.