The Meeting of Souls in the Afterlife: A Glimpse into the Unknown
It was narrated from Abū Hurairah that the Prophet ﷺ said: “When the believer is dying, the angels of mercy come to him with white silk and say: ‘Come out content and with the pleasure of Allāh upon you to the mercy of Allāh, fragrance and a Lord Who is not angry; So it comes out like the best fragrance of musk. They pass him from one to another until they bring him to the gate of heaven, where they say: ‘; How good is this fragrance that has come to you from the Earth! Then the souls of the believers come to him and they rejoice more over him than any one of you rejoices when his absent loved one comes to him.
They ask him: ‘What happened to so-and-so, what happened to so-and-so?’ They say: ‘Let him be, for he was in the hardship of the world. When he says, ‘Did he not come here?’ They say: ‘He was taken to the pit (of Hell).’ Come out discontent, subject of Divine wrath, to the punishment of Allāh, the Mighty and Sublime; So it comes out like the foulest stench of a corpse. They bring him to the gates of the Earth, where they say: ‘How foul is this stench!’ Then they bring him to the souls of the disbelievers.”
Sunan An-Nasā’i (no. 1833) and Mishkāt al-Masābīh (no. 1629) and graded Sahīh by Shaykh Al-Albāni.
Shaykhul Islām Ibn Taymīyyah stated: “When the souls of the living are taken by death, they meet with the souls that have already died, and they ask the newly deceased about the condition of those still alive.” See Majmū’ al-Fatāwā (24/303).
Do the souls of the dead meet one another, visit one another and talk to one another?
Imām Ibn al-Qayyim said: Souls are of two types: those that are punished and those that are blessed.
Those that are punished are too preoccupied with the torment that they are facing to visit and meet one another, but the souls that are blessed are free and are not detained, so they meet one another, visit one another and talk about what they used to do in this world and what happened to the people of this world. So each soul will be with its friends who did similar good deeds. See Kitāb Ar-Rūh (pp. 17-18)