لَتَرْكَبُنَّ طَبَقًا عَن طَبَقٍ (19)
(84:19) you shall proceed onwards from stage to stage. *11
*11) That is, "You will not remain in one and the same state, but will have to pass through countless stages gradually, from youth to old age, from old age to death, from death to barzakh (the intermediary state between death and Resurrection), from barzakh to Resurrections from Resurrection to the Plain of Assembly, then to the Reckoning, and then to the meting out of rewards and punishments. An oath has been sworn by three things to confine this:
(1) by the twilight,
(2) by the darkness of night and the gathering together in it of aII those human beings and animals who remain scattered in the day time, and
(3) by the moon's passing through different phases to become full. These are some of those things which testify that rest and stillness is unknown in the universe in which man lives. There is a continuous and gradual change taking place everywhere. Therefore, the disbelievers are wrong in thinking that life comes to an end after man has breathed his last.