The road to heaven Sunday, 28 August 2011 03:31

Islam teaches that all humans are the vicegerents or ambassadors of God on earth. The Quran, which is the Word of God, teaches that everything on earth has been created by God for the sake of us humans and that we have been appointed as God’s ambassadors to use the blessings of God for our own benefit.

We have freedom of will and action—of course, within limits. So, we can choose what to do or what not to do. Unlike other creatures of God, we can observe closely the world around us, use logic and reason, do research, think, calculate, speak, write, dream, sing, and pray. God commands us to make use of our God-given faculties to lead a good life here, indeed to create a better world.

When we become aware of the fact that our life and the world in which we live are the gifts of God, we become responsible beings. Then we do not waste any one of these gifts of God. One of the things for which we are answerable is the wasting of the resources available to us. Knowledge, skills, technology, and even time are immensely valuable resources for us to use carefully and wisely.

Even while we are reasonable beings, we commit mistakes, we forget, we slip, we fail, we make wrong choices and decisions. In fact, we are badly in need of guidance in many things, particularly in the matter of making the great choices of our life.

And God has given us guidance through His prophets. That was how religion was born. Those who imagine that they can do without divine guidance, or ignore that guidance, are the arrogant ones who do serious and fatal wrongs in life and waste the gifts of God. They are answerable before God.

There is a Judgment Day when all of us will have to stand before God and account for all our actions. Those who have accepted God and His guidance are the successful ones on that Day. Those who rejected God and His guidance are the losers. Now where do we find the guidance of God?

It is in the Books of God and the teachings of His prophets that we can get divine guidance. They teach us that we have to acknowledge our origin, that we have been created by the One and Only God.

Once we accept this, we have to lead a life in obedience to God. How do we do this? The prophets taught generations of people who lived in times of old, how to lead such a life.

Prophet after prophet came to teach God’s guidance, and finally one prophet came to complete and perfect the divine guidance; he was the Last Prophet, Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.

The Word of God revealed to Muhammad, (peace and blessings be upon him), is known as the Quran. The whole corpus of the teachings of the Prophet, which forms an example and explanation of the Word of God, is called the Sunnah of the Prophet.

Islam teaches that all of us must order our lives in the mold of the Quran and the Sunnah. This means that we have to believe in God, the Prophets, and the Day of Judgment, to mention the most important of the beliefs.

And then we need to live a life of obedience to God as commanded by God in the Holy Quran and shown by Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, in his Sunnah. Those of us who fail in this go to hell, and those who succeed in this get to heaven.

Thus in Islam, both faith and good works are of equal importance; indeed they are two sides of the same coin. In other words, faith without good works is a dead letter; and good works without faith are not really good works, for they are utterly futile.

Abu Sa’id (may Allah be pleased with him) reported:

Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: Allah, the High and Glorious, would say:

O Adam! and he would say: At Your service, at Your beck and call, O Lord, and the good is in Your hand. Allah would say: Bring forth the group of (the denizens of) Fire. Adam would ask: Who are the denizens of Hell? It would be said: They are out of every thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. The Prophet said: It is at this juncture that every child would become white-haired. As the Quran says what means:

“… and every pregnant one will drop her load, and you shall see mankind as in a drunken state, yet they will not be drunken, but severe will be the torment of Allah”.

(Al Haj 22:2)

The narrator said: This had a very depressing effect upon them upon the Companions of the Prophet and they asked: Messenger of Allah, who among us would be that fortunate person who would be admitted to Paradise? He said: Good tidings for you, Gog and Magog would be those thousands who would be the denizens of Hell and a person selected for Paradise would be among you.

The narrator further reported that Allah’s Messenger (PBUH) again said: By Him in Whose hand is my life, I hope that you would constitute one-fourth of the inhabitants of Paradise. We extolled Allah and glorified Him.

The Prophet again said: By Him in whose Hand is my life, I wish you would constitute one-third of the inhabitants of Paradise. We extolled Allah and glorified Him. The Prophet again said: By Him in Whose hand is my life, I hope that you would constitute half of the inhabitants of Paradise. Your likeness among the people is the likeness of a white hair on the skin of a black ox or a strip on the foreleg of an ass.

(Reported by Muslim.)

So according to the previous hadith, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every one thousand will be in fire, but Muslims do not need to be afraid from this as the Prophet (PBUH) said that Gog and Magog would represent the nine hundred and ninety-nine and he (peace be upon him) hoped that Muslims would represent half of the inhabitants of Paradise.

The Prophet said: If anyone testifies sincerely from his heart that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is His Bondsman and His Messenger, Allah immunizes him from Hell. The narrator then added: I asked the Messenger of Allah: Should I then give the tiding to the people? The Prophet said: Do not tell them this good news, for they would depend on this alone.

(Reported by Muslim.)

In Paradise, it is reported that everyone will get what they desire. Actually, I do not know what you mean by “something that is not considered good in this life” but if it is haram (prohibited) like wine, for example, in our earthly life, it will not be forbidden in Paradise, as God Almighty says in the Quran:

“Here is a parable of the Garden which the righteous are promised: in it are rivers of water incorruptible; rivers of milk of which the taste never changes; rivers of wine, a joy to those who drink; and rivers of honey pure and clear. In it there are for them all kinds of fruits; and grace from their Lord. [Can those in such bliss] be compared to such as shall dwell forever in the Fire, and be given, to drink, boiling water, so that it cuts up their bowels to pieces.” (Muhammad 47:15)

Pleasures in Paradise are different and they are not the same, so everyone will get what he or she desires. For example, those who were not granted children in their lives can desire to have children in Paradise and they will get what they desire.

As for women and the blessings they will have in Paradise, it was stated that they would be prettier than houris, and except for men having houris in Paradise, both men and women are equal in the blessings they will enjoy. Regarding having more than one husband, no hadith has stated this whatsoever; it is against the nature of women and the modesty women enjoy. (compiled from www.onislam.net)