The Questioners in the Grave

Munkar and Nakir are the two angels who, in Islamic tradition, examine the newly dead in the grave. The doctrine, drawn from the hadith rather than the Quran, holds that after burial the deceased is made to sit up and is questioned by these two angels: Who is your Lord? What is your religion? Who is this man who was sent to you? The believer answers rightly, God, Islam, Muhammad, and the grave is widened and made a place of light and ease until the resurrection; the one who cannot answer faces the "punishment of the grave" (adhab al-qabr), a torment in the interval between death and judgement.

The tradition thus posits a first reckoning immediately after death, before the final judgement, and the questioning of Munkar and Nakir is its instrument. Their names, meaning something like "the Denied" and "the Denier," and the vivid descriptions of their appearance in the hadith made the "trial of the grave" a vivid feature of popular Islamic eschatology and a frequent subject of devotional reflection on how one will answer.