With-Love-to-Muhammad

188 With Love to Muhammad sa the Khātam-un-Nabiyyīn
interpreted the expression tawaffaitanī as meaning
death. 195
Again, he writes:
In the idiom of the Holy Qur’ān, the word tawaffī
has always been used in the connotation of death and
taking possession of the soul. A minute study of
Arabic prose and poetry—both ancient and
modern—shows that wherever the expression tawaffī
is used for a human-being and the action is attributed
to Allāh the Glorious, tawaffī invariably means death
and taking possession of the soul. In this context,
there is not a single instance, where this expression
means anything other than taking possession of the
soul. Those who are wont to refer to lexicons like
Qāmūs, Sihāh, Sarāh, etc., have not found a single
instance where, in the context that we have
mentioned, any other connotation has been
attributed to the expression tawaffī. There is not the
slightest indication of the possibility of any other
connotation. Then I studied the books of hadīth to
discover whether the Holy Prophet (peace and
blessings of Allāh be upon him) or his companions
had on any occasion applied the expression tawaffī to
a human being in any other connotation than that of
death and taking possession of the soul. I had to
labor hard in this search. What I discovered on
checking every page of the compilations of Sahīh
Bukhārī, Sahīh Muslim, Tirmidhī, Ibn-e-Mājah, Abū
195
Izāla-e-Auhām, Rūhānī Khazā’in, Volume 3, Pages 585-586, trans. in The
Essence of Islām, Volume 3, Page 194-195