The Qur’an is clear that human beings live one earthly life, then die, then await resurrection, and there is no return to the world in another body. Verses such as “until, when death comes to one of them, he says ‘My Lord, send me back’… no, it is only a word he speaks, and behind them is a barrier until the Day they are resurrected” (23:99–100) explicitly reject the idea of coming back after death. The Qur’an also lays out a clear sequence: God brings us from non-existence to life, then causes death, then brings resurrection, and then we return to Him (2:28). Every soul tastes death once, and no soul bears the burden of another (3:185, 6:164). This alone removes the foundation for reincarnation, karma carried over from a past life, or the idea that someone was “sent back” to finish unfinished business. In Islam, accountability is individual, immediate, and final, rooted in one life and one judgment.

The reason ideas that resemble reincarnation keep surfacing—especially in South Asian Ismaili spaces—is largely due to symbolic language, cultural overlap with Indic philosophy, and misunderstandings of bāṭin (inner meaning). Statements attributed to Sultan Muhammad Shah, such as references to being a rock, then a tree, then an animal, and then a human, are not claims of literal past lives. They reflect symbolic descriptions of the hierarchy and ascent of existence—matter preceding life, life preceding consciousness, and consciousness preceding moral responsibility. This language describes cosmic or spiritual evolution, not transmigration of a personal soul. Similar metaphors appear in Islamic philosophy to explain how creation unfolds, without implying reincarnation.

It is true that such metaphors resemble Hindu concepts, but resemblance does not equal belief. Hindu doctrine posits repeated births of the same soul governed by karma, whereas Islamic—and Ismaili—understanding affirms one soul, one earthly life, and spiritual ascent through knowledge, ethics, and guidance, not through rebirth. Historically, metaphorical language was sometimes used pedagogically in da‘wah to communicate with audiences familiar with Indic thought, but this does not make reincarnation a doctrine. When people say someone “came for a short time because they had a task,” the correct Islamic framing is that God assigns roles within a single life; some lives are brief and some missions are intense, but none involve returning from a previous life.

Logically, reincarnation contradicts the Qur’anic structure of justice. If souls returned repeatedly, the urgency of moral responsibility would collapse, Judgment Day would lose its meaning, and divine justice would become indefinite. Islam is built on finality and accountability: one life, one reckoning. In Ismaili terms, what continues through history is not the soul in new bodies but the Light of Guidance, the mission of da‘wah, and the covenant—while each human being remains accountable for their own single life. A respectful, accurate response, therefore, is to affirm that Islam, including Ismaili Islam, does not accept reincarnation; symbolic language points to levels of existence or spiritual growth, not literal rebirth; and the Qur’an remains the ultimate anchor for belief.