بِمَا غَفَرَ لِي رَبِّي وَجَعَلَنِي مِنَ الْمُكْرَمِينَ (27)
(36:27) for what reason Allah has forgiven me and placed me among the honoured ones.' *23
*23) This is a specimen of the high morality of the believer, He had no illwill or feeling of vengeance in his heart against the people who had just then killed him so that he should invoke Allah against them. Instead, he was still wishing them well. After death the only -wish that he cherished was: 'Would that my people could know the good end that I have met, and could learn a lesson froth my death, if not from my life, and adopt the righteous way." The noble person did not wish Hell for his murderers but wished that they should believe and become worthy of Paradise. The same thing has been commended in the Hadith: "He wished his people well when living as well as when dead." Allah has narrated this event in order to warn the disbelievers of Makkah to the effect: `Muhammad (upon whom be Allah's peace) and his believing Companions are also your well-wishers just as the believer was of his people. They do not cherish any ill-will or feeling of vengeance against you in spite of your persecutions of them. They are not your enemies but enemies of your deviation and error. The only object of their struggle against you is that you should adopt the right way."
This verse also is one of those verses which clearly prove the existence of barzakh. This shows that the period of time between death and Resurrection is not a period of non-existence altogether, as some ignorant people think. But in this period the spirit lives without the body, speaks and hears speech, has feelings and desires, feels happy and unhappy, and also continues to be concerned about the people of the world. Had it not been so, the believer would not have been given the good news of Paradise after death, and he could not have wished that his people became aware of his good end.