Orthodox Islam does not accept reincarnation. Some Sufis (mystical Muslims), however, do accept it.
Qur’an
Surah 2:28
How can you deny God, when you were dead and God gave you life? Then God will cause you to die, and then revive you, and then you will be returned to God.
Surah 39:42.
It is Allah that takes the souls (of men) at death; and those that die not (He takes) during their sleep: those on whom He has passed the decree of death, He keeps back (from returning to life), but the rest He sends (to their bodies) for a term appointed verily in this are Signs for those who reflect.
Surah 56:60-1.
We have decreed Death to be your common lot, and We are not to be frustrated from changing your Forms and creating you (again) in (forms) that ye know not.
Rumi (Sufi)
I died to the inorganic state and became endowed with growth,
And then I died to (vegetable) growth and attained to the animal.
I died from animality and became Adam (man):
Why, then, should I fear?
When have I become less by dying?
At the next remove I shall die to man, that I may soar and lift up my head amongst the angels;
And I must escape even from the state of the angels: everything is perishing except His face. (Mathnawi 3:3901-4, translated by R. A. Nicholson)
Druze and Alawi
A belief in reincarnation is atypical for Islam. There are, however, some Islamic sects that believe in reincarnation, including the Druze and Alawi who are most numerous in Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. These minority groups hold a tenuous position among Muslims, in some measure due to their belief in reincarnation, and are often considered by their mainstream Sunni or Shi’a co-religionists as heterodox or even heretical. Druze and Alawi differ in several particulars regarding how they describe the workings of reincarnation. (Anne Bennett, “Reincarnation, Sect Unity,and Identity among the Druze,” Ethnology, Spring 2006)
![Shanti Devi was born in Delhi, India.[1] As a little girl in the 1930s, she began to claim to remember details of a past life. According to these accounts, when she was about four years old, she told her parents that her real home was in Mathura where her husband lived, about 145 km from her home in Delhi. She also shared three unique features about her husband – he was fair, wore glasses, and had a big wart on his left cheek. She also stated her husband's shop was located right in front of the Dwarkadhish temple in Mathura.[2] Discouraged by her parents, she ran away from home at age six, trying to reach Mathura. Back home, she stated in school that she was married and had died ten days after having given birth to a child. Interviewed by her teacher and headmaster, she used words from the Mathura dialect and divulged the name of her merchant husband, "Kedar Nath". The headmaster located a merchant by that name in Mathura who had lost his wife, Lugdi Devi, nine years earlier, ten days after having given birth to a son. Kedar Nath traveled to Delhi, pretending to be his own brother, but Shanti Devi immediately recognized him and Lugdi Devi's son. As she knew several details of Kedar Nath's life with his wife, he was soon convinced that Shanti Devi was indeed the reincarnation of Lugdi Devi.[3] The case was brought to the attention of Mahatma Gandhi who set up a commission to investigate. The commission traveled with Shanti Devi to Mathura, arriving on 15 November 1935. There she recognized several family members, including the grandfather of Lugdi Devi. She found out that Kedar Nath had neglected to keep a number of promises he had made to Lugdi Devi on her deathbed. She then traveled home with her parents. The commission's report, published in 1936, concluded that Shanti Devi was indeed the reincarnation of Lugdi Devi.[3] Two further reports were written at the time. The report by Bal Chand Nahata was published as a Hindi booklet by the name Punarjanma Ki Paryalochana. In this, he stated that "Whatever material that has come before us, does not warrant us to conclude that Shanti Devi has former life recollections or that this case proves reincarnation".[4] This argument was disputed by Indra Sen, a devotee of Sri Aurobindo, in an article later.[5] A further report, based on interviews conducted in 1936, was published in 1952.[6] Shanti Devi did not marry. She told her story again at the end of the 1950s, and once more in 1986 when she was interviewed by Ian Stevenson and K.S. Rawat. In this interview she also related her near death experiences when Lugdi Devi died.[1] K.S. Rawat continued his investigations in 1987, and the last interview took place only four days before her death on 27 December 1987.[7] A Swedish author who had visited her twice published a book about the case in 1994; the English translation appeared in 1998.[8]](http://reincarnation.theosophical.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/shantidevi3.jpg "Shanti Devi")
