4. AL-LAH is the Living, Everlasting, and therefore those He loves, and so love Him, are guaranteed to share in His Eternal Life.
And verily the dwelling of the Everafter is the [real] Life. (Q29:64)
وَإِنَّ الدَّارَ الآخِرَةَ لَهِيَ الْحَيَوَانُ
He is the Possessor of Unity, Mercy, Knowledge, Truth, Justice, Beauty, and Peace, and consequently those who strive for these qualities with faith (for they cannot realize them completely in this life) and sincerity are entitled to their share in His Life accordingly. These are not mere abstract assertions of belief; they represent a person’s moral identity. To ‘go through the motions’ of a faith without these moral qualities is no way to salvation.
I heard Aba Hurairah say, “It was said to the Prophet (may GOD bless him and give him peace), ‘O Messenger of AL-LAH, a woman stands for prayer by night, and fasts by day, and performs [acts of piety] and gives in charity, and injures her neighbours by her tongue.’ The Messenger of AL-LAH (may GOD bless him and give him peace) replied, ‘There is no good in her. She is among the people of the Fire.’” (Al-Adab Al-Mufrad 119)
سَمِعْتُ أَبَا هُرَيْرَةَ يَقُولُ: قِيلَ لِلنَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم: يَا رَسُولَ اللهِ، إِنَّ فُلاَنَةً تَقُومُ اللَّيْلَ وَتَصُومُ النَّهَارَ، وَتَفْعَلُ، وَتَصَّدَّقُ، وَتُؤْذِي جِيرَانَهَا بِلِسَانِهَا؟ فَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم: لاَ خَيْرَ فِيهَا، هِيَ مِنْ أَهْلِ النَّارِ
– Parallel to the real life of the spirit that people can participate in here, and know fully in the Everafter, Hell is also described as a dwelling or abode in many verses. But it is a place where one
neither dies in it nor lives. (Q87:13)
لاَ يَمُوتُ فِيهَا وَلاَ يَحْيَا
Stripped of this world’s glitter, glamour, gains, and disguises, the life of Hell is seen for what it always was, and what many of its denizens proudly claim to be their only mission – bare survival. When shorn of all morals and ethical ideals, this is what the Darwinian struggle for existence looks like in the domain of spiritual realities – an ugly, painful, endless persistence for its own sake. Brute facts, ungraced by GOD’s nobler qualities, mutate, repeat, and smolder on miserably in the half-life He has always given facts. We cannot call it a fully human life, but it is a life form nonetheless, for the spark of GOD, once fanned into life by His Breath, His Aspiration for that particular spirit He created, can never die.
5. The Light of GOD, like all His other attributes, is One, but the shadows cast by the blockage of that Light are many. Each of us has his or her own shadow, a testament to both His One Light and the diversity of our partial access to it. GOD’s Love reaches around behind our individual boulders, the illusions we have set up to protect our fragile egos, and coaxes us to lower our defences, to stop cowering behind our false idols, and come out into the brilliance of His Mercy. Awareness of our shadow-nature, the darkness in us, is a precondition for full recognition of the Light that would dispel it. This turning away from our darkness to His Light is termed taubah in Arabic, or repentance. Our turning to GOD coincides with His turn to us, and this convergence of wills is what I described earlier as real freedom. It coincides with a Divine Blessing that we experience as GOD’s Forgiveness. None of us can heal or be whole without it.
From Abi Hurairah (may AL-LAH be pleased with him), who said, “The Messenger of AL-LAH (may GOD bless him and give him peace) said, ‘Not one of you will be saved by his deeds.’ [Those present] asked, ‘Nor you, O Messenger of AL-LAH?’ ‘Nor me,’ he replied, ‘unless AL-LAH covers me with Mercy.’” (Sahihul-Bukhari, Book 81, Hadith 52)
عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ ـ رضى الله عنه ـ قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم لَنْ يُنَجِّيَ أَحَدًا مِنْكُمْ عَمَلُهُ قَالُوا وَلاَ أَنْتَ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ قَالَ وَلاَ أَنَا، إِلاَّ أَنْ يَتَغَمَّدَنِي اللَّهُ بِرَحْمَةٍ،
From Anas, who said, “The Messenger of AL-LAH (may GOD bless him and give him peace) said, ‘Every son of Adam errs, and the best of those who err are the repentant.’” (Sahihub-nu Majah, Vol. 37, Book 1, Hadith 4392)
عَنْ أَنَسٍ، قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ـ صلى الله عليه وسلم ـ : كُلُّ بَنِي آدَمَ خَطَّاءٌ وَخَيْرُ الْخَطَّائِينَ التَّوَّابُونَ
Repentance, when meant sincerely and not intended as a tactic for regaining sympathy, approval, or control, is a statement of faith, and ultimately an ontological act. The penitent affirms by his or her remorse that there is a higher world that negates the power plays, facades, and frauds of this one. It is not just a reaction to getting caught. Punishment may prompt it, but the source of true repentance is not what happens in this life, but rather seeing what always should have been and should always be. It affirms that moral direction matters more than mere matters of fact.
– Hell, on the other hand, is GOD’s response to our refusal to repent. People consign themselves to Hell not primarily by what they do – for all of us deserve some suffering for our sins – but what they do unrepentantly, by their confirmed choice of darkness when Light was available. The amoral calculations that never rise above realpolitik are written on the walls of Hell and Wall Street, in the netherworld of anti-values, of lies that take on a pseudo-life of their own. Besieged as we are by today’s secular corporate mass media, we might even say that we are experiencing this 3D amorality first-hand, well in advance of the Everafter.
Truly Hell surrounds the faithless. (Q9:49)
وَإِنَّ جَهَنَّمَ لَمُحِيطَةٌ بِالْكَافِرِينَ
The GOD You Already Know 