Rationalizing the Truth and Falsehood
In order to establish a sense of balance, if the truth must be rationalized and based on the foundation of knowledge, similarly the proponents of falsehood will be invited to try to do the same with regard to their alien paradigms.
This will happen on the Day of Judgement. People will be unable to do so, for the obvious reason that falsehood and knowledge-cum-reasonableness are incompatible.
People then will be admonished as to how they could not perceive that veracity while in this world, what made them trade the obvious truth of Islam for the equally obvious falseness of something else, and what made them overlook the light of true knowledge in favour of the opacity and unintelligibility of something else.
To this end are Allah’s words to such people on the Day of Judgement:
“And (warn of) the Day when We will gather from every nation a company of those who deny Our signs, and they will be (driven) in rows; until, when they arrive (at the place of Judgement), He (Almighty Allah) will say: “Did you deny My signs while you encompassed them not in knowledge, or what (was it that) you were doing?” (al-Naml, 27:83-84).
In other words, people will be reproached, first, for denying Allah’s signs (guidance) not on the strength of knowledge, but on the strength of obstinacy, mere denial and ignorance.
Second, people will be brought to task over pursuing inadequate knowledge, which did not produce sought-after results, and instead of drawing people closer to the Creator it drew them away from Him.
And third, people will be rebuked for mistreating and abusing – hence incapacitating – some of the greatest gifts of the Creator to man, His vicegerent on earth, which are intelligence and common sense, as a result of which many people rushed the things and without any pangs of conscience ended up either ignoring or repudiating that which they did not and could not know (did not fit their own knowledge moulds).
However, if used correctly, neither intelligence nor common sense will allow a person to deny the existence of the Creator at the same time as only a tiny portion of His magnificent creation is discovered and rendered known to man. This state of affairs, unquestionably, is supposed to humble man and to teach him a lesson, rather than to blind him and make him additionally arrogant.
Likewise, after discovering their fate on the Day of Judgement, the Hell-bound persons will reproach themselves, saying:
“Had we but listened or used our intelligence, we would not (now) be among the Companions of the Blazing Fire!” (al-Mulk, 67:10).
The message of this verse is that the only way to salvation is to listen to the Prophet and the revelation sent to him; that is to say, to use and follow the revealed knowledge as the fountainhead of all guidance and all conceptual as well as behavioural wisdom. Other valid alternatives come second and their roles are subserviently complementary. Even if people did not follow the revelation at first, the power and purity of their intelligence, if used aright, were able to direct them to the worth and function of the revelation.
Nonetheless, one should not be hoodwinked into a deception. Intelligence on its own cannot guide a person completely. What it can do, though, is to lead to the right source. Almighty is nothing and nobody other than Allah, the source of the revealed guidance and wisdom. Intelligence, on the contrary, is powerful, but not the most powerful; it is mighty, but not almighty. Of its own accord, intelligence cannot guide to the truth; it can lead only as far as its threshold.
Questions in the Grave and Apostasy
All this can be further corroborated by two points. First, as soon as they die, people will be questioned in their graves, according to a number of authentic traditions of the Prophet. The questions will be few and will revolve around the most critical aspects of life, religion and human terrestrial mission.
People will be asked about their Lord, their religion and their prophet (this man who had been sent among you). Believers will duly answer that their Lord was Allah, their religion was Islam, and their Prophet was Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Afterwards they will be asked how they knew, or what made them know, all that, to which believers will reply that they have read the Book of Allah (the Holy Qur’an as the revealed knowledge and guidance), believed in it and confirmed it (theoretically and in practice). (Sunan Abi Dawud)
This also calls attention to the importance of proper and holistic knowledge and the inevitable results it produces. Were it not for the Qur’an, the above responses would be different and so, incorrect.
In contrast, non-believers will not be able to answer the questions and pass the exam. That will be for obvious reasons, which will revolve around non-believers being strangers to the content and objectives of the Qur’an. In the world of ultimate realities, subsequent to one’s death, no alternatives that belied such realities will avail a person anything at all. In the Hereafter everyone will reap what he sows in this world.
And the second corroborating point is that once the truth is embraced on the basis of profound understanding issuing from appropriate knowledge, there is no turning back. One’s affiliation with the truth is set to grow from strength to strength after that. Such is the nature of the truth that once a person tastes it legitimately, he can never have enough of it. The more he enjoys it the more he wants it, for indeed a truly religious person has an insatiable desire to control insofar as the wholesomeness of the truth is involved.
Emperor Heraclius Asks About Islam
In a dialogue between the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius and Abu Sufyan bin Harb – who was yet to accept Islam – the former asked, among other things:
“Does anybody amongst those who embrace his (Prophet Muhammad’s) religion become displeased and renounce the religion afterwards?”
Abu Sufyan replied in the negative, prompting Heraclius to remark:
“In fact this is (the sign of) true faith, when its delight enters the hearts and mixes with them completely.” (Sahih al-Bukhari).
In consequence, what is called apostasy can be related only to those poor souls who initially either “accepted” Islam for some ulterior motives and hidden agendas, or did so superficially and by the use of inappropriate methods and channels, such as those that pertain to the meaning and roles of learning, matter-of-factness and civilization-building.
No true Muslim will ever become an apostate, in that such runs counter to the fundamental laws of spirituality and reason. So-called apostates are only those who either manage to misconstrue, or are made to misconstrue, the genuine message of Islam as a religion that judiciously integrates the requirements of the body and soul, this world and the afterlife, spirituality and everyday life, and of crudeness and civilization.
Those apostates were never Muslims. They knew neither Islam nor life.
Pages: 1 2