How Can We Reconcile Punishment Of The Grave Hadiths With The Quran?
There is no apparent contradiction with Quran 39:42 . This specific verse is talking about Allah’s control in all such matters and that life and death is in power of Allah. Keeping a soul does not necessarily entail that it is kept in the skies, it can be kept anywhere ( whether it be this earth or some place else as far as the linguistics of the verse are concerned ). Quran also clarifies it in 36:50-51 that they will be raised from their graves on the day of judgement and that they will be given new bodies as per Quran 56:61 . After research on Ahadith relating to punishment inside grave, Ghamidi Sahab is of view that Barzakh is a place in this earth which has an intangible existence and will become visible on the day of judgement. Same is the case with our new bodies which are actually given to us after our death inside the barzakh and they will also become visible on the day of judgement. It is not the same place as our physical grave but some other place on the earth, invisible to us at the moment. Hadith uses the reference to physical graves where we are burried as a passing reference for our understanding, since this is the only place which we humans can see and are aware of at the moment and the only place where we can relate our dead ones with. Please refer to the video below from 34:35 to 40:51 https://youtu.be/ByeuYteInRE?t=2075