Mystical systems
Barzakh
Direct answer
Barzakh is an Arabic word for a barrier or partition; in Islamic teaching it names the interval between the death of a person and the day of resurrection.
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At a glance
- Also called
- life in the grave in Islam, the interval in Islam
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Purgatory, Sheol, Last Judgment, Bardo
Barzakh is an Arabic word for a barrier or partition; in Islamic teaching it names the interval between the death of a person and the day of resurrection.
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What does barzakh mean?
Barzakh means a barrier between two things. The Qur'an uses the word three times: twice for the barrier that keeps two waters from mixing, and once, in the chapter called The Believers, for a barrier that stands behind the dead until the day they are raised. From that verse Muslim scholars took it as the name of the whole state between death and the resurrection.
Islamic tradition, drawing on the sayings of the Prophet, teaches that in this interval the dead are questioned in the grave by two angels and have a foretaste of what awaits them. The schools differ on details, and the Qur'an itself says little. Sufi writers, Ibn Arabi above all, also used the word for any realm in between that joins two orders of being.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Death and what follows.
What sets Barzakh apart
Barzakh is first of all a word about separation: a thing that stands between two others and keeps them apart while touching both. Applied to the dead, it stresses that they cannot come back and that the final judgement has not yet come. That makes it a waiting state for everyone, not a cleansing for some. The Sufi use turns the same idea into a bridge, a middle realm of images between bodies and pure spirit.
- Meaning: Arabic: barrier, partition, isthmus
- In the Qur'an: three times: 23:100, 25:53 and 55:20
- Verse on the dead: 23:100, a barrier behind them until they are raised
- Questioning in the grave: by the angels Munkar and Nakir, in the hadith
- Philosophical use: Ibn Arabi, died 1240: an intermediate world of images
Often mistaken for something else: In Catholic teaching purgatory purifies those already bound for heaven; in Islamic teaching barzakh is the interval that all the dead pass before the resurrection.
The story behind Barzakh
The word is thought to have come into Arabic from Persian. The Qur'an was proclaimed in the early seventh century. The traditions about the questioning in the grave were gathered in the great hadith collections of the ninth century, and theologians such as al-Ghazali, who died in 1111, wrote at length on the states after death. Ibn Arabi, who died in 1240, gave the term its wider philosophical use.
Why Barzakh matters
Barzakh answers, for Muslims, the question of where the dead are before the resurrection, and it marks that state off from the final judgement.
How to read Barzakh
Muslim scholars use it for the period in the grave, and students of Sufism for an intermediate world between the bodily and the spiritual.
Barzakh in practice: an example
A reader of the Qur'an in translation meets the word left in Arabic, with a note saying that it means both a barrier and an interval.
Where readings of Barzakh go wrong
Barzakh is the teaching of a living faith, told here from its own sources. The house says nothing of the state of any person who has died.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- al-barzakh, barzakh meaning, life in the grave in Islam, the interval in Islam
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What does barzakh mean?
It is Arabic for a barrier or partition. In Islamic teaching it names the interval between death and the day of resurrection.
Is barzakh mentioned in the Qur'an?
Yes, three times. Two verses speak of a barrier between two waters, and one speaks of a barrier behind the dead until the day they are raised.
Is barzakh the same as purgatory?
No. Purgatory in Catholic teaching is a cleansing for those bound for heaven. Barzakh in Islamic teaching is the waiting state of all the dead before the resurrection and the judgement.
