Every living creature must sooner or later die.It seems that among all animate beings its the man who is solely conciously aware of this fact.Eversince the beginning of the creation,life and death have coexisted and accompanied the melody of creation . The history of man's reflection has also been concerned with this subject.
Great thinkers have dealt with the subject of death and life and the relationship between the two from different and sometimes opposing points of view . Some of thess thinkers like Chung-Tse,a Chineese learned man have,considered the coexistence of death and life inherent in nature like day and night.Some others have placed death against life and belive that the conflict between these two phenomena is the most fundamental conflict in man . Some others like Molavi ( a great Iranian thinker and poet ( believe that man's evolution would have been impossible without death and absence of life. Some other thinkers such as Ampedolex make judgment and consider life as a positive and existent entity and death as negative and non-existent one. Or like Eric Ferum using ethical evaluation contemplates that whatever is for life is good an whatever is at death's service is evil . Among pessimists ,some like Freud with their scholarly outlook consider the ultimate goal of the strive of organisms to be the occurance of death. Some have been so pessimistic that to place life , and not death,against life , and like schopenhauer believe that life is nothing more than a battle against life ; a battle which ( in the end ( leads to death.
What is for sure is that death has a close relationship with man's psychological development and shaping.There is a two way relationship between death and personality; and as death affects one's personality structure,the role of personality in the quality of death and how one dies is important.Death,just like life,resembles us more than anything else.Man's personality is like a mirror which reflects the truth that how ways of life change into ways of death.The moment death falls is itself of basic significance in man's life This moment is the time when the whole truth is seen and the most general outlook of life is formed;because life in its wholeness and comperhensiveness reveals itself to the eyes which are about to close.In fact it is on verge of mortality that one can achieve an apprehension of one's whole being.May be it is because of this very close relationship between man and death that the west witnessed a resurrection in the issues and discussion concerning death and mortality in the second half of the twentieth century.
Thanatoloty or the study of death is a new arena which reflects man's strive towards gaining a knowledge about death and his challenge with dying.This fact is seen in the psychological literature of 1960 s. Thanatology discusses such issues as death, dying ,behaviors theratening life ,sorrow bereavement,suicide,fatal disease,patients about to die , and the problems of the relatives of the departed person.Scientists have considered death to have three dimensions , in-personal death ) internal experience about personal mortality ) , inter-personal death ) unpleasant experiencs of losing someone very dear ( and non-personal death ) the death of those which does not incite any mourning or sorrow in the person ).
From other aspect death has also been believed to have three aspects : 1 - Sociological death ) separation between the patient and important people in his / her life (. 2 - Psychological death ) when the patient accepts his / her own death ); 3 - Physical death,which has two components, biological and sociological ; in biological death organisms lose their life as a part of a human entity , like unrevertable comas of a person whose heart or lungs are functioning with the help of man-made machines. In physiologic death the function of the system of organs stops.
Some researchers believe that the process of dying form from personal psychological stages. One of the propositions suggested includes the stages of denial ) denial of disease ( , fury ) because of frustration against death(,begging )by trying different ways to delay death(,depression )as a result of helplessness and a feeling of humiliation against destiny (,and accepting death.
Yet no outhority has ever claimed to have suggested a comprehensive definition and explanation of death.Only Islam has presented man with the most inclusive and comprehensive definition and interpretation of the essence of death and man's end , and interpreted the narrow,dark and horrorful passageway of death to be a bridge for leaving to the other world