Author: Abu Ayesha
Resurrection after Death (part 24)
Second Doubt: The Problem of the Eater and the Eaten (Akil and Ma’kul)
At the time of resurrection, Allah the Almighty will restore human beings with their physical bodies. In other words, both the body and the soul will be brought back. A question, however, is raised: if a person’s body decomposes into dust, becomes part of plants and fruits, and is then consumed by another person and incorporated into that person’s body, or if, during times of famine, one human being survives by consuming the flesh of another, then on the Day of Resurrection, to which of the two bodies will those consumed particles belong? If they return to the first body, the second body will be incomplete; and if they remain with the second body, the first body will be incomplete or even destroyed.
Response to the Doubt
Although various answers have been proposed for this question, finding a sound response is of great importance. Some scholars who were unable to find a satisfactory answer resorted to interpreting and allegorizing the Qur’anic texts concerning bodily resurrection and confined human identity solely to the soul and its attributes, as previously discussed.
Below, based on A Comprehensive Collection of Sunni Beliefs, we present an answer that is consistent both with the Qur’anic texts and with modern scientific understanding.
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Continuous Replacement of Bodily Components
We know that the components of the human body change repeatedly from childhood until death. Even brain cells, although their number may remain relatively stable, undergo continual renewal in their constituent parts. They are nourished on one hand and broken down on the other, resulting in a complete replacement of their material composition over time.
In less than ten years, almost none of the body’s original particles remain. However, before the older cells disappear, they transmit all of their characteristics and properties to the newly formed cells. This is why a person’s physical features—such as color, shape, facial appearance, and other bodily characteristics—remain recognizable despite the continual replacement of bodily matter.
Consequently, the final particles that remain in a person’s body at the time of death contain the accumulated characteristics acquired throughout that person’s lifetime. They serve as a complete record of the body’s history.
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The Relationship Between Body and Soul
Although the essence of human personality lies in the soul, the soul develops and matures together with the body. Each influences the other. Just as no two bodies are completely identical, no two souls are identical in every respect.
For this reason, a soul cannot exercise its full capacities independently of the body through which it developed and matured. Therefore, on the Day of Resurrection, the same body must be restored so that the soul may reunite with it, continue its existence at a higher level, and receive the consequences of its deeds.
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Every Cell Contains the Characteristics of the Whole Person
Each particle of the human body contains the characteristics of that individual. If it were possible to develop a single cell into a complete human being, that individual would possess the same personal characteristics as the person from whom the cell originated.
Was not every human being originally a single fertilized cell? That one cell contained all of the person’s characteristics. Through division it became two cells, then four, and so on, until the entire body was formed.
Therefore, every cell in the body is a branch of the original cell and contains its essential characteristics. If developed under the same conditions, it would produce a human being possessing the same defining qualities.
The Resolution of the Objection
In light of these three principles, the answer becomes clear.
The Qur’an explicitly states that the particles present in a person’s body at the time of death will be returned to that person on the Day of Resurrection. Therefore, if another individual has consumed some of those particles, they will be removed from the consumer’s body and returned to their original owner.
One might object that this would leave the second body incomplete. In reality, however, it would not become incomplete but merely smaller. Since those particles had been dispersed throughout the second body, their removal would proportionally reduce its size and mass.
For example, if a sixty-kilogram individual had forty kilograms of bodily matter originally belonging to another person, the removal of those particles would leave a much smaller body, perhaps comparable in size to that of a child.
Would this create any difficulty? Certainly not. Even in its smaller state, that body would still retain all of the characteristics of the second person. During the Resurrection, it could grow and develop—just as a child grows into an adult—until it becomes a complete human being. Such development presents no rational or textual difficulty.
Whether this process occurs instantaneously or gradually is unknown to us. However, either possibility is entirely feasible and resolves the issue.
A Further Question
What if an entire body were composed of particles taken from another body?
The answer is that such a scenario is impossible. The problem of the eater and the eaten presupposes the prior existence of a body that consumes another. Therefore, a body must already exist before it can be nourished by another body.
Consequently, the consumed body can only contribute some parts to the consuming body, not constitute the whole of it. [1]
Based on what has been explained, it becomes evident that bodily resurrection with the same body presents no difficulty whatsoever. There is therefore no need to reinterpret the Qur’anic verses that clearly affirm this doctrine.
Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (RA) stated, “What is considered in the resurrection of bodies is the restoration of their original and essential components that remained with them from the beginning of life until its end, not those acquired through nourishment.” Thus, in the case of the eater and the eaten, what is restored are the original components that constitute the person himself, not the transformed particles. These are the parts that remain with a person throughout his life. [2]
To be continued…
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References:
- Makki, Dr. Majd. A Comprehensive Collection of Sunni Beliefs (Majmū‘ah-yi Kāmil az ‘Aqā’id-i Ahl al-Sunnah), translated by Fayz Muhammad Baloch, Vol. 2, 1394 A.H.S. (2015), pp. 696–698.
- Al-Muqaddam, Jihan Nur al-Din Muhammad. “Al-Ma‘ād Bayna al-Muthbitīn wa al-Munkirīn: Dirāsah Taḥlīliyyah Naqdiyyah” (Resurrection between the Affirmers and the Deniers: An Analytical and Critical Study), published in the Journal of the Faculty of Islamic and Arabic Studies, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2019, p. 63.
