Beyond Death (Ān sūy-e marg)
In early 2019 (the Iranian winter and spring of 1397-98) a young Iranian cleric, Hujjat al-Islam Mustafa Aminikhah, spent about thirty-nine sessions with university students reading a Persian book of three near-death accounts, Ān sūy-e marg ("Beyond Death"), and explaining what they mean in the light of the Qurʾān, the Imams' sayings and the philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā. Two question-and-answer sessions followed in early 2020.
This site brings the series together for readers and researchers: the Persian transcript and an English summary of every session, with a link to the audio on the speaker's own site, with a short note on the speaker and on near-death experiences (NDEs) in Iran.
Hujjat al-Islam Mustafa Aminikhah lecturing on Ān sūy-e marg (video from the series, on YouTube, uploaded by the channel Jan-e Kalam). Watch on YouTube.
Why it matters. The series gives a long, candid statement of how a seminary-trained, Ṣadrian-leaning cleric with ties to the Leader's office understands near-death experiences. See His reading of NDEs for a synthesis.
What is in the series
- Story 1 (sessions 1-5): a woman who, in a coma after strokes and a cardiac arrest, is visited by a figure of light and recovers.
- Story 2 (6-15): an engineer who leaves his body twice, sees spirits and devils over his city, and meets his dead brother and mother.
- Story 3 (16-39): a university lecturer who passes through a tunnel to a valley where he must answer for wrongs to other people, and is given another chance after forgiving a debt.
- Questions and answers (40-41): listeners' questions on sorcery, rights of others, the appearance of the Imam of the Age and more.
Between the stories Aminikhah teaches on the barzakh (the world between death and resurrection), the "imaginal world", the meaning of light, the rights of other people, and why the goal is God and not paradise.