Voice of British Muslim Women

Arfa Yassir, Swindon

Just as in the physical world there is also progress and outcomes of our actions in the spiritual world without which everything will lose meaning. A seeker of God derives pleasures from every upgrade and steps ahead towards Him, this ‘progress’ and it’s pleasure never lets a seeker tire of his quest. Those who take wrong steps also progress but in the wrong direction. They move away from their Creator and His love. Man has been given free will to step ahead either way.

God gave us a law to live life in the form of religion. He sent His Messengers time and again with teachings carefully matched according to the mental development of human mind at the time. He knew only teachings won’t work so He sent Prophets who spent extremely difficult lives and faced intense oppositions.  Why? Because humans need a role model, so they may not claim that the teaching God has sent is not practical and no one can act upon it. God further promises in the Holy Qur’an that if an individual strives in His path, God will most certainly guide him! (29:70)

God has provided us adequate means for spiritual progress. Those who still wrong themselves and drift away from their Creator will find the hereafter painful due to their own nature they had developed during the course of their lives. We know that the purpose of this life and the hereafter is attaining higher and higher degree of nearness to God Almighty. We are meant to seek salvation from hell fire in the last ten days of the holy month of Ramadan. Let us try and understand a little what is it that we seek protection from during these last ten days of Ramadan.

The Holy Qur’an states hell fire is for those who wrong themselves. Of course we have no idea of the exact nature of our existence in the afterlife. There will be pleasure and pain as per the teaching of the Holy Qur’an, but we are not aware of its exact nature. The Qur’an states: “From changing your present forms and raising you into something of which you have no idea’. (56:62) Descriptions of heaven and hell in the Holy Qur’an are hence metaphorical. The Holy Qur’an states that no soul will be wronged. In fact there will be greater reward for good deeds but an equal reward for bad deeds.
His Holiness Mirza Tahir Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him) has beautifully explained the concept of the hereafter.[i] He states:

“The concept of hell and heaven in Islam is completely different from the normally held view. Hell and heaven are not two different places occupying separate time and space. According to the Holy Qur’an, the heaven covers the entire universe. ‘Where would be hell then?’ enquired some of the companions of the Holy Prophet(ﷺ). ‘At the same place’, was the answer, ‘but you do not have the faculty to understand their coexistence.’ That is to say in ordinary human terms, they may seem to occupy the same time-space, but in reality because they belong to different dimensions, so they will coexist without interfering and inter-relating with each other.”

“…hell and heaven are only issues of relativity. A healthy soul which has acquired the taste for good things, when brought into close proximity of the objects of its choice, will draw even greater pleasure than before. All that a healthy spiritual man was craving was nearness to God and His attributes and to imitate divine virtues. In heaven, such a healthy soul would begin to see and conceive and feel the nearness of the attributes of God like never before…The converse will be true of hell, in the sense that an unhealthy soul would create an unhealthy body for the new soul of the hereafter. And the same factors which provide pleasure to the healthy soul would provide torture and deep suffering for this unhealthy entity.”
So in essence what we seek protection from in the last ten days of Ramadan is a state created by ourselves in our earthly life due to drifting away from God. The Promised Messiah (peace be on him) said: ‘The purification of one’s self is very difficult and yet salvation is based on the purification of self’.[ii]  Islam teaches us that purification is conditional to righteousness and this entails avoiding all that is evil for the pleasure of God, to abide by all His commandments and to avoid all that He has forbidden. The Promised Messiah (peace be on him) also explained: ‘The Holy Qur’an teaches us that salvation is a matter that is manifested in this very life…’. [iii] May Allah enable us to tread the path that leads to this and may these last ten days of Ramadan be blessed for us. Ameen.

[i] https://www.alislam.org/library/books/Elementary-Study-of-Islam.pdf  (pp. 50-53)

[ii] https://www.alislam.org/malfoozat/salvation-is-based-on-purification/

[iii] https://www.alislam.org/articles/faculties-for-seeing-god-can-be-developed-in-this-very-world/