By Ibraheem A. Waziri
MashaAllah. As the crescent moon rose to herald Ramadan this year, on this twentieth day of March 2025, a profound stillness has settled over me. The fast silences my body’s clamor, the long nights of prayer elevate my spirit toward the heavens, and my thoughts drift into the boundless expanse of the unseen. This Ramadan, I find myself wrestling with the nature of dimensions—what they signify, how they shape our fleeting lives, and how death might unlock realms beyond our earthly reach.
The Qur’an unveils glimpses of this mystery: seven heavens layered in divine order, Jannah’s gardens of eternal serenity, Jahannam’s depths watched by stern guardians, and Allah’s timeless, infinite dominion. The number four—etched into our 4D reality and echoed in a hadith debate I explored last week—anchors my reflection, while the nineteen of Surah Al-Muddathir, mirrored in the nineteen letters of *Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim*, stirs my soul. Could death guide us through a cosmic graveyard of stars into these dimensions, as some now ponder in awe?
Let us begin with dimensions as we experience them in this Duniya, this transient abode. We dwell within three spatial dimensions—length, width, and height. A minaret pierces the twilight sky; its shadow stretches wide across the sun-warmed earth, and its foundations sink deep into the soil. Time, the fourth dimension, flows relentlessly forward, a current bearing us from the first whispered adhan of Fajr to the tranquil hush of Isha.
These four—three of space and one of time—form our 4D reality, a spacetime framework we navigate with every breath and every step we take. Yet science, with its insatiable curiosity, gazes beyond this familiar quartet, proposing extra dimensions—ten, eleven, or perhaps far more—coiled tightly at scales too tiny for our eyes to discern or sprawling across unseen planes our hands cannot grasp. These are not mere directions to wander but subtle layers, bending the forces of gravity, energy, or the very essence of creation in ways that stretch our comprehension.
In 2018, a Northern Nigerian Hausa broadcasting Television Station, Arewa24, in a documentary about space named black hole mutuwaren taurari (Mortuary of Stars), but I preferred mak’abartar taurari—the Graveyard of Stars—as a more evocative term. Here, death is a profound key, a passage to what lies beyond. In this 4D shell, we are tethered—our physical forms bound to the limits of space, our lives measured by the steady march of time.
The Qur’an, however, assures us that the soul, the ruh, endures beyond this fragile vessel. When we die, might that soul break free, slipping into a fifth dimension, a sixth, or even further—realms where Jannah’s rivers ripple with mercy and Jahannam’s fires blaze with justice, domains veiled from us until Malak al-Mawt, the Angel of Death, carries us across the threshold?
Physics offers a faint echo of this possibility: higher dimensions might surround us, omnipresent yet inaccessible, hidden behind a veil that only death can part. Some astronomers link each soul to a star wandering the cosmos; when a person dies, their star might collapse into this graveyard, bearing their ruh along. Could this black hole be a portal, a barzakh, where dimensions unfold beyond our sight?
The Qur’an sketches this vastness with strokes of majesty. “He who created seven heavens in layers,” proclaims Surah Al-Mulk (67:3), urging us to reflect on the nature of these layers. Are they celestial skies arching above our world, glowing in the twilight? Or could they be universes, dimensional planes, each distinct yet interconnected, ascending beyond our perception into a hierarchy only Allah fully comprehends?
Our 4D reality, with its glittering stars and sprawling earth, might be the “lowest heaven,” as Surah As-Saffat (37:6) suggests, with its adorned lights, while six more heavens rise above, reachable only when death turns the lock. Time, too, bends in Allah’s presence—Surah Al-Ma’arij (70:4) likens a day with Him to fifty thousand years of our earthly counting. In these higher dimensions, time might not flow as we know it; it could stretch into an endless horizon, loop upon itself, or fold into an eternal now—a reality death alone might usher us into.
Yet it is the number four that steadies my wandering mind, a pattern I cannot unsee. Just last week, in *The Eternal Quartet: Understanding the Hadith Debate in Northern Nigeria*, I wrote of a debate stirring Northern Nigeria’s Muslim online space—Shaykh Prof. Ibrahim Saeed Ahmad Maqari and Shaykh Prof. Sani Rijiyar Lemo clashing over the degree of certainty in different categories of Hadith rather than dismissing their essence outright.
I framed the scholars’ dispute through four lenses: reason, belief, doubt, and rejection, a quartet mirrored in Islam’s four legal schools—Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali—and four theological paths—Mu’tazila, Ash’ari, Maturidi, Athari. Maqari, with his Ash’ari and Maliki roots, demands the unshakable certainty of Mutawatir hadiths, those narrated by many, while Rijiyar Lemo, grounded in Athari and Salafi trust, upholds authentic Ahad narrations with strong chains, even if from fewer sources. Four emerged as a complete, balanced square: Maqari’s logic seeking widespread proof, Rijiyar Lemo’s faith in vetted tradition, the doubters’ hesitant questions, the rejectors’ outright dismissal. As I dwell in our 4D spacetime, I see it again—four as our foundation, the root from which higher dimensions might grow, a motif threading through faith, nature, and the human heart.
Then comes a piercing verse—Surah Al-Muddathir (74:30): “Alaiha tis‘ata ‘ashar”—“Over it are nineteen.” Nineteen angels guard Jahannam, their number stark and resonant, a mystery that stirs my soul to its core. Are these guardians confined to our 4D frame, or do they stride across dimensions, overseeing a hell that burns beyond our spacetime? This deepens when I count the letters in Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim—ب س م ا ل ل ه ا ل ر ح م ن ا ل ر ح ي م—nineteen in all, the sacred invocation that opens every surah but one. Could this parallel—nineteen angels, nineteen letters—hint at more, perhaps 19 dimensions woven within or alongside the seven heavens? Science freely posits dimensions; string theory suggests ten or eleven, but the Qur’an’s seven and nineteen numbers carry a divine weight. From our 4D base, the seven heavens might rise as broad realms, each enfolding finer layers, totaling 19—a cosmic framework death unveils, where the nineteen serve as eternal watchmen.
Consider the black hole, this mak’abartar taurari. Could it be barzakh, a liminal space bridging dimensions? Does it cradle Jannah’s tranquility or Jahannam’s torment? Some wonder: might the Day of Judgment spring from this starry graveyard, an event science cannot yet name, where fallen stars—and souls—rise into new dimensions? We perceive only four in this Duniya, but black holes might harbor twelve, as some speculate. Add seven for Jahannam’s planes, and we reach 19—four we know, eight in Barzakh’s depths, seven in Saqar’s fire, guarded by nineteen, as Allah declares, “Alaiha tis‘ata ‘ashar”. Last century, scholars like Khalifa Rashad stirred debate with new readings of this verse—could it point to such a cosmic order?
Envision it: our 4D reality as the first heaven, rooted in four—length, width, height, and time. Six more heavens ascend, each a dimensional cluster, totaling 19 with Barzakh and Jahannam’s layers. Surah Fussilat (41:12) says each heaven has its command—unique laws across these planes, from fifth to nineteenth. His Kursi (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:255) spans them, the nineteen as sentinels in its scope. The Qur’an says the soul’s end wanders in the space between the dimensions of fire (dread) or peace (natsuwa). Death might thrust us through mak’abartar taurari into these 19, where nineteen angels stand guard.
As Taraweeh’s verses wash over me this Ramadan, I feel four and nineteen entwined. If 19 dimensions veil Jannah, Jahannam, or more, might they host others—angels, jinn, beings unseen? Science puzzles at silence; death might unveil a chorus. In sujood, fasting’s clarity sharpens this: the Qur’an bids us marvel. Whether seven heavens hold 19 dimensions via a starry graveyard, death is our key—a mercy cloaked as an end.
Breaking my fast, dates sweet with Jannah’s echo, I feel tethered to this vastness. Our 4D world—fourfold in dimensions and thought—is a breath, a shadow of Allah’s infinite craft. Ramadan 2025 is my pilgrimage—through hunger, hope, and “Alaiha tis‘ata ‘ashar”, mirrored in Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim—toward a reality where death, from our fourfold root, opens the door to seven heavens, nineteen dimensions, and Allah’s eternal truth. Allah Shine masani.
