SPIRIT OF ISLAM NOVEMBER 2019

21 Spirit of Islam Issue 83 November 2019 say, ‘You only stayed for a little while, if only you knew. ‘Do you imagine that We created you without any purpose and that you would not be brought back to Us?’ (23: 112-115) Denying God and disregarding the Hereafter in the lifelong pursuit of worldly attainments will result in eternal punishment in Hell-fire. Those who conduct themselves in this way are described in the Quran as “people who buy the life of this world for the price of the Hereafter”. For them God decrees: “Their penalty shall not be lightened, nor shall they be helped.” (2: 86) Another verse states: Those who rest not their hope on their meeting with Us, but are pleased and satisfied with the life of the present and those who heed not Our Signs; their abode is the Fire, because of the evil they earned. (10: 7-8) Those who forget that this world is only a temporary place of trial and who are not mindful of God’s signs, but are quite satisfied with worldly play and the amusements of this life, assuming them to be their own, and even deifying them, will surely deserve the most grievous penalty. The Quran describes the status of such people: Anyone who has acted arrogantly, and prefers the life of this world, will find himself in Hell. (79: 37-39) God has made His Heaven full of all kinds of blessings in the world of the Hereafter. Those who prove to be God-fearing and pious in this world will enter that world to find the gates of Heaven eternally open for them. But those who are oblivious of God in this present world will be deprived of the blessings of the Hereafter. God is invisible in this present world, and will appear in all His power and majesty only in the world of the Hereafter. Then all human beings will bow low before Him. But at that time, surrendering will be of no avail. Surrendering before God after seeing Him in the Hereafter will not benefit anyone. Death is not the end of a person’s life. It is only the beginning of the next stage of life. Death is that interim stage when man leaves this temporary world of today for the eternal world of tomorrow. He goes out of the temporary accommodation of the world to enter the eternal resting place of the Hereafter. The coming of this stage in the Hereafter is the greatest certainty in one’s life. No one can save himself from this fate in the Hereafter. o