Various Exegetical Views Regarding the Purgatory Life

One of the important issues among Islamic scholars is the notion of purgatory life which plays a pivotal role in many other issues like intercession, invocation, cry, etc. in a way that by proving the existence of such a life after death, other basic issues will be proved as well, and the denial of purgatory life will lead to the negation of other issues too. This has frequently been mentioned in the Quran. The term "Barzakh" (purgatory life) has been explicitly mentioned in the Quran, chapters 3, 40 and 23, while the general concept of such a life has been implied in some other verses. Some of the Sunni exegetes have a distinct view about the meaning of these verses saying they do not imply the existence of such a life, instead, they believe that the next life of man after death will occur in the Hereafter following the blowing of the trumpet and not in this world. The present study aims at expressing and analyzing different views in this regard.