Questioner: Huzoor, there are three types of deaths.
Huzoor (rh): Three types of?
Questioner: Of deaths.
Huzoor (rh): Just three?
Questioner: I would like one, yes.
Huzoor (rh): I am relieved to hear that.
Questioner: Well, what we know, yes. The natural one, the suicide and the one person who is murdered.
Huzoor (rh): Or accident as well? No?
Questioner: Well, accident I consider it as natural.
Huzoor (rh): I thought you considered it as unnatural.
Questioner: OK, this is disputable. The person who commits suicide…
Huzoor (rh): Suicide always occurs out of natural causes to which the one who commits suicide has recourse. For instance, in an accident you may bleed yourself, but the person who commits suicide, he will also use something, some natural means to produce death, by cutting his arteries or by drowning or by jumping from a 12-storey building. So that is accident as well, isn’t it?
Questioner: Yes.
Huzoor (rh): So the only difference between accident and this is that this is committed with an intention and that happens.
Questioner: What I would like to know is what is the punishment for committing suicide?
Huzoor (rh): You see, this is left to God. It is very difficult to go deeper into the psyche of such a person and determine, difficult for man I mean, to determine whether it was a result of his illness over which he had no control or whether it resulted from his despondency in the mercy of Allah. They are two different things. If he is fully conscious of what he is doing and he has full command of his senses and then commits suicide out of any reason, protest or whatever it is, that is considered a crime which is very serious in Islam because after that he has no time to repent.
You see, the same crime causes his death with the result that he is given no more time to repent and seek mercy of Allah. So if anyone dies while he is, as the Holy Quran puts it, Those who die while they transgress against themselves, they will meet some punishment certainly. So some of them would certainly meet some punishment. It depends on how Allah decides and how much guilty they are found in the sight of Allah. But some may be totally forgiven because the Holy Quran also declares: لَا یُکَلِّفُ اللّٰہُ نَفۡسًا اِلَّا وُسۡعَہَا ؕ لَہَا مَا کَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَیۡہَا مَا اکۡتَسَبَتۡ
That Allah does not burden anyone beyond his capacity. If there is a madman, you know, he is not answerable. So if it is suicide is a result of madness or some complicity of psychic state where he has no control over his actions, then of course he will be forgiven. I am quite sure Allah, as He reveals Himself in the Quran, would treat him with mercy.
Questioner: Thank you.
