The material in this blog is now available at amazon.com under the title: Ideas Inspired by the Qur’an.
Despite our need to locate Heaven by its opposite, nothing is more inherently offensive and intolerable for today’s secular mindset than the subject of Hell. We tend to suspect the motives and rationality of anyone who defends it, let alone threatens others with it. The Qur’an, however, is full of ‘fire and brimstone’ and verses that consign its enemies to the flames, seemingly with both relish and abandon. It reads as if GOD is going out of His way to flout all the maxims of modern marketing and the permissive mores of contemporary society. Nonetheless, everything I have written here so far leads to this, the thorniest and most paradoxical topic in this book.
If we want to understand the rationale for Hell, we could start by listening to what its residents have to say about themselves when replying to their Lord.
“Were not My signs read out to you, but you rejected them?” / They reply, “Our Lord, misfortune overcame us, and we were a people gone astray. / Our Lord, remove us from here; if we do the same again, then we would be the sinners.” (Q23:105-107)
أَلَمْ تَكُنْ آيَاتِي تُتْلَى عَلَيْكُمْ فَكُنتُمْ بِهَا تُكَذِّبُونَ
قَالُوا رَبَّنَا غَلَبَتْ عَلَيْنَا شِقْوَتُنَا وَكُنَّا قَوْمًا ضَالِّينَ
رَبَّنَا أَخْرِجْنَا مِنْهَا فَإِنْ عُدْنَا فَإِنَّا ظَالِمُونَ
Rather than wholeheartedly confessing that they have been wrongdoers and facing the finality of their situation, these new arrivals do not even bother to answer the charge of having rejected the signs of their Lord. They blame their misfortune and ask for a second chance as if they had not had sufficient opportunities and warnings the first time. They fail to admit the justice in their suffering – the first vital step in any sincere change.
And those who were unfaithful say, “Our Lord, show to us the jinn and men who misdirected us, that we might put them both beneath our feet and let them be among the lowest.” (Q41:29)
وَقَالَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا رَبَّنَا أَرِنَا الَّذَيْنِ أَضَلاَّنَا مِنَ الْجِنِّ وَالإِنْسِ نَجْعَلْهُمَا تَحْتَ أَقْدَامِنَا لِيَكُونَا مِنَ الأَسْفَلِينَ
Even in the Fire, they squander their prayers to GOD in mutual recriminations, requests for vengeance, and concerns with their position vis-à-vis the other inhabitants.
Contrast this quarrelsome, complaining, and useless verbiage of Hell with the self-effacing praise and gratitude expressed by the denizens of the Garden:
And We remove the rancour in their hearts, with rivers flowing at their feet, and they say, “Praise is for AL-LAH Who guided us to this, and we would not be rightly guided other than with guidance given us by GOD. Our Master’s messengers have come with Truth.” (Q7:43)
وَنَزَعْنَا مَا فِي صُدُورِهِمْ مِنْ غِلٍّ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهِمْ الأَنْهَارُ وَقَالُوا الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي هَدَانَا لِهَذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهْتَدِيَ لَوْلاَ أَنْ هَدَانَا اللَّهُ لَقَدْ جَاءَتْ رُسُلُ رَبِّنَا بِالْحَقِّ
Another verse appears to prove that new arrivals in Hell achieve a measure of instant enlightenment:
If only you could see the criminals, their heads bent down, before their Lord. “Our Master, we have seen and heard, so send us back that we might act with righteousness. Indeed we are convinced.” (Q32:12)
وَلَوْ تَرَى إِذْ الْمُجْرِمُونَ نَاكِسُوا رُءُوسِهِمْ عِنْدَ رَبِّهِمْ رَبَّنَا أَبْصَرْنَا وَسَمِعْنَا فَارْجِعْنَا نَعْمَلْ صَالِحًا إِنَّا مُوقِنُونَ
But in their haste to get out, they do not pause to repent; rather they claim their arrival has achieved its purpose, as if they were on a study tour. They do not begin to rectify their spiritual state by identifying it; rather they only seek to escape, and will say anything to get free.
Hell is an educational experience, but so is life. If a whole lifetime is not enough to learn that GOD is Greater than all else we might value, then Hell will certainly turn out to be more than just an academic pit-stop. And so we read:
And he who here was blind is, in the Everafter, blind and even more astray. (Q17:72)
وَمَنْ كَانَ فِي هَذِهِ أَعْمَى فَهُوَ فِي الآخِرَةِ أَعْمَى وَأَضَلُّ سَبِيلاً
The GOD You Already Know 