Araf
The triliteral root ʿayn rā fā (ع ر ف) occurs in the Quran 70 times.
(7:46) A barrier separates them. At the identification station (Arab. الْأَعْرَافِ, l-aʿrāfi) there are pedestrians who recognize others by their features. They called out to the dwellers of paradise: "Peace be upon you!" They have not yet entered it, but they are hoping.
Why Identification Station?
The word araf is a plural noun derived from the verb ARaFa (recognize, discern, know, identify). The usage of both of these forms in this very verse clarifies the meaning of araf as identification station, where people are separated according to their failure and success in their test during their lives on the planet earth. Traditional translations render it as "purgatory, limbo" or an elevated third place between paradise and hell. We translated the word rijal as "people" rather than "man," since the verse is not in the context of relations between men and women. Unlike zakar (male), rijal (men, walkers on feet; humans) does not necessarily exclude women (See, 9:108; 16:43; 17:64; 21:7; 38:62; 64:6; 72:6). At the identification station, people are recognized and separated based on certain marks recognized by detectors commissioned by God. See 2:26; 13:35; 47:15. Also, see 12:109; 33:4; 39:29; 72:5.
The idea of limbo has been much more important among Catholics. However, in 2006, after a week-long deliberation, the Theological Commission recommended to Pope Benedict XVI that he abolish limbus infantium which has been in existence for the last 700 years. Below is an excerpt from the Internationalist Humanist News authored by Babu Gogineni about this "radical restructuring of the heavens":
"Since early days, Christians have wrestled with the thorny question of the fate of unbaptised prophets, as well as the fate of children who die before they are baptized. Catholics believe that all human beings, with the exception of Mary and Jesus, are born in original sin and that only the ritual of baptism will cleanse their sins and will redeem them. Without baptism, there can be no union of the believer with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, and there can be no holy communion with God, either in this life or in the next. Such a person cannot go to heaven even if he or she has never committed sin.
"To help solve the problem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390 AD) proposed that the unbaptised should neither be punished nor could they access the full glory of God. However, the hardliner St Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) rejected this idea, insisting that baptism was necessary for salvation, and that even babies would be consigned to hell if they were not baptized. Though St. Augustine made the generous concession that their torment would be the mildest of all of hell's residents, this torture of the innocent was unacceptable to St Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274 AD), the first major theologian to speculate about the existence of a place called limbo where these souls would be lodged for ever. Limbo is now a part of Canon Law. …
"This safe passage to heaven that the Catholic Church now assures children who are dying young is a significant step in the right direction. One should now hope and pray that in the Catholic heaven the children will also receive adequate protection from sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Since the Church did not deem sexual abuse by its clergy a matter worthy of punishment in this world, they will all no doubt now be going to heaven too. The Church needs to take immediate steps to ensure that the millions of little children who are now being admitted to heaven are adequately protected in line with the Holy See's international obligations as an early ratifier of the 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child."
On the other hand, a Lutheran theologian Martin E Marty, in an article published at Christian Post, criticized the timing of this papal amendment and its ramification:
"The post-limbo announcement awakens all kinds of responses, many of them easily accessible on the internet or in the press. Taunters who have heard that Catholicism does not change now taunt, "Here's a change." Catholic pastors who have always found the reference to limbo, a place of non-descriptness and non-happening, to be more chilling than comforting to parents of unbaptized children can be relieved of the charge to pass on word about it. Catholics who lean toward a most expansive Catholic view of salvation and tend toward universalism cheer, for this proclamation that unbaptized infants can go straight to heaven might open the door for Catholic witness that some non-infants could have the same experience. "Pro-choice" Catholics are coming on record as seeing that this can fortify their cause: If fetuses are babies, and they no longer go to limbo but can go to heaven, then abortion may not be as dire a fate as it is often pictured to be. Abort and send them prematurely to heaven. Catholic traditionalists – you'll find plenty of them – rage at Pope Benedict and others involved in this announcement, seeing them as traitors to the Catholic cause: If this can change, can't other things? Relativism, which the pope abhors, will take over.
"Pope Benedict made clear in his announcement that limbo was never an infallible teaching and was not even a formal doctrine of the church. We wonder whether generations of parents who suffered endlessly as they imagined their infants endlessly denied the vision of God or much of any other kind of vision knew of that nuance. Those of us who are not Catholic, and who care about Catholic teaching and Catholic parents, but cannot appreciate all the niceties of gradation of authority among "infallible" and "not quite infallible" and "traditional" and "easy to change" teachings, will look for clarification.
"So will Catholics of many stripes, including some who had not thought about limbo for a long time, but in response to press coverage now find themselves in an intellectual limbo."
