Akhirah.
Akhirah. Akhirah. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'la insistently repeats and
reminds us of it on almost every page of the
Qur'an. So does Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, the last
Messenger of Allah (swt) for mankind, with every word he speaks and
everything he does. They tell us that the Akhirah is more real than the
ground under our feet. Real success or failure is success or failure
in the Akhirah for which Allah (swt) will be the sole Judge. Nothing in
this world has any value if it does not benefit man on the Day of
Judgment. Thus, there is no Islam without the Akhirah, and no sensible
Muslim can remain forgetful of it lest he become a loser on that
Momentous Day.
Still, it is very easy to lose sight of the Akhirah, even for us
believers, or to fail to be fully conscious of this most important
reality. It is easy to forget that we will harvest in the Akhirah what
we sow in this world, and that
- for good or for bad - we are all engaged in sowing, each moment of our
present life. There are various reasons for this loss of sight and
forgetfulness.
One, we do not see the Akhirah before our eyes as we do other things.
Two, we have no experience of it. And thirdly, of course, we have our
many distractions. The vivid and variety-filled world that we see before
our eyes absorbs our attention, time and energy. This world seems
solid and permanent, while death seems remote and the Akhirah merely an
abstract proposition of no immediate relevance.
In fact it was not meant to be easy for us to keep the Akhirah in mind.
It is on the question of the Akhirah that our iman is sorely tested.
Our attitude to the Akhirah depends solely on the strength and vitality
of our iman.
To keep our iman healthy and strong and ensure its continuous growth we
have to nourish and nurture it. This can only be done through our
passionate engagement with
Allah's (swt) Book of Guidance for us and His Noble Messenger Muhammad
(saws).
In this connection it would help to ask ourselves what the basis of our
iman is. First, we believe that the
Qur'an is the word of Allah (swt). We have all the evidence we need to
be sure that the
Qur'an is the word of Allah and preserved in its original form. And
thus we believe that whatever Allah has said in the
Qur'an is true. Nothing can be truer. Allah (swt) has not said anything
that we do not need. And since He has placed so much importance on the
Akhirah, the Muslim has to take it seriously. Any confusion in the
heart about the veracity of the
Qur'an will naturally undermine a Muslim's sense of the reality of the
Akhirah.
We further believe that Muhammad (saws) is a true Prophet of Allah
(swt). Even the minutest details of his life are known to us. In fact,
there is no one else in history or in our personal life whom we know
better. His life convinces us. There is nothing false about him; he
never told a lie or deceived anyone. Muhammad (saws) never sought any
reward from others for what he did. All his struggles and hardships
were for the sake of Allah (swt) alone. The
Qur'an emphatically proclaims this: "No reward do I ask of you: it is
(all) in your interest: my reward is only due from Allah: and He is
Witness to all things." (Surah Saba
34:47). Even when we pray for him by saying sallahu alayhi wa sallam (Surah Al-Ahzab
33:56), it is for our benefit, not his. Our prayers do not advance
Muhammad's (saws) place before Allah (swt) in any way. His position is
secure with Allah (swt), but saying our taslim is an unfailing means for
us to please Allah (swt). Thus we trust the most trustworthy, selfless
and caring human being who ever lived.
We can also find confirmation for our belief by engaging our capacity
for thinking. Islam does not require us to close our minds. On the
contrary, it encourages us to think. Allah (swt) repeatedly prods us to
observe and draw lessons from what we observe and rebukes us for our
failure to think and reflect.
As thinking and reflecting beings, we can ask ourselves one question.
What does life look like without the Akhirah? What meaning or sense and
purpose is there in life if there is no Akhirah? None.
Without the Akhirah, all is chaos, useless, valueless. On an entirely
self-enclosed worldly level there cannot be any such thing as right and
wrong, good or bad. All are equal and therefore meaningless. Without
the Akhirah, an occasion for an absolutely thorough and flawless
account-taking from man and according him what he truly deserves, any
edifice of meaning or value that man might wish to erect crumbles even
before it can be started. In such a case, what need or justification
can there be in continuing to live in this state? Man would be in a
void of despair.
But before one gives up and totally surrenders to despair, he can look
at the universe around him and think about it. What should he make of
the amazing beauty, variety,
organization, interrelatedness, balance and harmony in the universe?
What has brought about this harmony in variety? Surely, all these
things could not have been there by themselves or by accident. Surely,
some supremely powerful, intelligent and wise source must be behind all
this, to bring all these qualities into being, to invest them in the
universe and to guide and control it. And this source also needs to be
one and indivisible. The presence of harmony unmistakably testifies to
the unity and oneness of the source, for harmony is the imprint of unity
on multiplicity.
This leads to another very important question. If that Source or Being
can bring into existence such a universe of order and harmony, would
He leave human beings, the most delicate and complex thing in the
universe, outside His scheme? Since every element in the universe
functions according to the law and principle impregnated into each,
would He leave man without some law and principle to direct him? No,
that cannot be. That would mean an element of disorder in an otherwise
orderly universe. Reason demands a scheme and guidance for man also.
Here, however, we must recognize a crucial difference between all the
other elements in the universe and man. While each of them obeys the
guidance imbued into it, man has a will of his own and the freedom to
use it the way he wishes.
Man's case therefore is different: the scheme and guidance for man must
also be different.
As man can choose how to behave, there has to be some arrangement for
his proper accountability and a dispensation of what he has earned
through his choice. This requires the presence of all the parties
involved and the availability of all the evidence at one place and time,
and a judge capable of dealing with everyone with unquestionable
thoroughness and justice.
Before man faces his judgment, though, the basis on which he is going to
be judged must be made known to him. Observing the orderly
behavior of the minutest of particles in the universe, man can feel sure
that the basis for order in his life is also available. If he looks for
it, he will find it.
Man with his pure innate capacity for thinking and reflection can easily
arrive at a point where he can feel the existence and working of a
Supreme and Perfect Being, the need for guidance from that ultimate and
unfailing Source and the advent of a final moment of resolution when all
confusion and bewilderment will be dispelled and all conflicts
resolved, a moment when there are no more loose ends or unanswered
questions. These are the most urgent and profound truths that man needs
to know and can realize by his own effort. And this is one of the
urgent messages at the heart of Islam.
There is no difficult or complicated philosophy involved in all this
thinking. It is within the reach of any sensible human being, as it
should be. For it affects the ultimate and eternal destiny of each one
of us. But man by his own efforts can go no further. He cannot know
the full identity and will of that Supreme Source, the form of his
guidance, or clearly imagine the final judgment. He needs help from the
Supreme Source. The realization of this is the dawning of wisdom.
It is here that Allah's (swt) revelation and sending of human Messengers
to guide and forewarn man fit in. Together, they can safely conduct man
to the Akhirah. The human Messenger is needed not only to convey the
message from Allah (swt) but no less importantly to also show man how to
make use of the revelation. Thus
Allah's (swt) scheme for mankind finds fulfillment through three things:
the Revelation, the Messengers and the Akhirah.
We Muslims believe in these things because nothing else makes sense. All else is confusion and disorder.
Now, what remains for us to do is to keep our vision of the Akhirah
real, vivid and fresh, and work to prepare ourselves while we are in
this world for that inevitable and overwhelming eventuality. It is on
our vision of the Akhirah that our response to life, its conditions and
all that befalls us, depends.
As always, we have the example of our most beneficent friend Muhammad
(saws). How real, immediate, acute and vivid the Reality of the Akhirah
was to him can be seen from this Hadith:
"They (his Companions) said: 'Oh, Messenger of Allah, we saw you reach
out to something, while you were standing here, then we saw you restrain
yourself.' He said, 'I saw Paradise and reached out to a bunch of its
grapes, and had I taken it you would have eaten of it as long as the
world endured. I saw Hell
also'" (Sahih Muslim, Book 004, Hadith 1982). There are numerous other
ahadith that convey the feeling that Muhammad (saws) is already there
and is talking to his companions from there.
When we say we accept him as our Prophet (saws), we commit ourselves to
molding our lives after him in every way. Let us try to keep our vision
of the Akhirah clear and vivid, as Muhammad (saws) did, and to ready
ourselves for it as he taught us to do.
