Arguments for Belief in the Hereafter
---Manifestations of such overwhelming and all-pervasive beneficence open up fresh avenues of understanding. The human being realizes the inevitability of and need for a day of reckoning – the day when all powers shall rest with Allah only, and He shall judge people in equity and justice, requiting the wicked for their evil and rewarding the righteous for their good and virtue, most graciously and generously.
---How do these manifestations of Allah’s beneficence and mercy lead us to realize the need and the inevitability of a day of reckoning and recompense?
The Qur’an at various places refers to Allah’s providence and mercy to show that a day of reckoning is inevitable.
---Consider, for instance, what it says about the heavens and the earth. Allah has made the earth a cradle for us, and the heaven a canopy above it.
---He has made the sun and the moon to shine and brighten our world.
---He has pressed into our service diverse forces and elements of nature such as the winds and the clouds, and has fully provided for all our needs – apparent, hidden, moral, spiritual, and physical in a most appropriate manner. Has He created all these in vain, and without any higher purpose?
---Is it possible that He created and then abandoned us, leaving us to our own little devices? Or, has this universe been created by its Creator in mere sport and jest, with no higher purpose or goal behind its creation?
---Or, is the human being just a wayward creature let loose to prance and pasture at will, with no accountability or responsibility? If this is what you think, the surah informs us, then you are seriously mistaken.
---The whole creation, with the providential care that pervades it, is crying out, as it were, to make us aware that the care and blessings showered on us are indeed for a higher and nobler purpose.
---Those enjoying these blessings without any right to them must also share the responsibility that goes with them. Everyone will be questioned about these obligations and responsibilities on the Day of Decision.
---Those who fulfill their obligations faithfully and honestly would be blessed with lasting success and happiness, and those who ignore them do so to their own detriment: they will be humiliated and deprived that day. The Qur’an has described this essential fact in various forms. For the sake of brevity, we would quote only one example here:
Have We not made the earth a cradle for you and set the mountains as the stabilizers therein? And We created you in pairs. And We made your sleep a remover of trouble. And We made the night a covering for you, and the day a time for earning (your) livelihood. And We set above you seven strong heavens. And We placed (therein) a radiant lamp. And We sent down from the clouds water in abundance so that We might produce thereby corn and plants and lush gardens. Indeed, the Day of Decision has been fixed. (78·6-17)
that is, all the things mentioned above clearly indicate that every blessing is accompanied by a responsibility, for there are no privileges without responsibilities.Can the human being hope to enjoy these Divine blessings and gifts without bearing his share of the responsibility that goes with their enjoyment? Indeed not. Hence the need for a Day of Decision to judge the good and the evil, to reward the one and punish the other.
----The final day of judgement is an essential consequence of Allah’s grace and mercy, the fact that He is Al-Rahman (the Most Gracious) and Al-Rahim (the Ever Merciful). As the Merciful and Most Gracious God, He indeed must bring about a day to judge between the good and the evil, rewarding the one for goodness, and punishing the other for evil.
----For, how can God, Most Gracious and Ever Merciful, treat alike the oppressor and oppressed, the good and the evil, the rebellious and the faithful, and fail to discriminate between them, neither requiting the oppressor for injustice and cruelty, nor avenging the wrongs suffered by their victims?
----If human life comes to an end with our physical death, and there is really no day of reckoning thereafter – a day of requital for redressing grievances and rewarding good – it would clearly imply that in the sight of the Creator of this world, there is little difference between the good and the bad, the virtuous and the vicious, the faithful and the treacherous. In fact, sinners and criminals would in such an eventuality be relative winners, for it would mean that Allah gives them free rein to indulge in crimes or corruption without accountability.
----This is fundamentally wrong and unjust as it negates Allah’s grace and mercy, contradicting the fact that He is God, Most Gracious and Ever Merciful. It is in this context that the Qur’an categorically refutes the notion of freedom without responsibility as a slander against Allah:
Shall We then treat those who surrender themselves to Us as (We would treat) those lost in sin? What is the matter with you? How do you judge? (68·35-36)
In other words, as Allah is Most Gracious and Ever Merciful, He will certainly one day gather before Him all men and women to judge them with full justice, and recompense everyone according to his or her performance in this earthly life.
The Qur’an says:
---This verse clearly shows that the Day of Judgement is in fact a manifestation of Allah’s mercy (rahmah) that He has prescribed for Himself.
---The advent of a Day of Judgement is thus inevitable. All people will be gathered that day before their Sovereign Sustainer to be judged by Him with perfect justice.
---By implication, it means that on that day no one shall have any power or be in a position to interfere in any way with His perfect judgement, either through intercession or otherwise, making the good appear evil or evil seem good.
---Everyone will get what he or she rightly and justly deserves. This clearly shows that there is no contradiction between Divine justice and mercy; rather, the two go hand in hand with justice flowing from mercy as its most natural consequence.
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