The Hell or Heaven?

“Has the news of the over-shadowing calamity (of Resurrection) reached you?  Some faces on that Day shall be downcast, labouring, hard, feeling weary, scorching in the blazing fire. They will be given to drink from a boiling fountain, and their only food will be thorny, dry grass, which will neither fatten nor satisfy hunger.

Some faces on that Day shall be joyful, well-pleased with their endeavours, in a lofty Garden; there they shall hear no idle talk. In it there will be running springs; in it there will be raised couches; goblets set forth; cushions ranged in rows and fine carpets spread out.

(They do not believe) but, do they not look at the camels, how they were created? And at the heaven, how it was raised high? And at the mountains, how they were firmly set? And at the earth, how it was spread out?

“Well, (O Prophet,) go on admonishing them, for you are only an admonisher: you are not there to coerce them. But on him who turns away and disbelieves, Allah will inflict a heavy punishment. To Us they have to return; then it is for Us to call them to account.” \

There was a period when the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had started preaching his message publicly, and the people of Makkah were hearing it and ignoring it carelessly and thoughtlessly. In the initial stage the preaching of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) mostly centered around two points which he wanted to instill in the people's minds: Tauhid and the Hereafter: and the people of Makkah were repudiating both. 

In order to arouse the people from their heedlessness, they have been plainly asked:"Do you have any knowledge of the time when an overwhelming calamity will descend?" Immediately after this details of the impending calamity are given as to how the people will be divided into two separate groups and will meet separate ends. One group of the people will go to Hell and they will suffer punishment; the second group will go to the sublime Paradise and will be provided with, blessings. 

The question is asked: Do not these people, who frown and scorn the teaching of Tauhid and the news of the Hereafter being given by the Qur'an, observe the common things which they experience daily in their lives? Do they never consider how the camels, on whom their whole life activity in the Arabian desert depends, came into being, endowed precisely with the same characteristics as were required for the beast needed in their desert life? When they go on their journeys, they see the sky, the mountains, or the earth. Let them ponder over these three phenomena and consider as to how the sky was stretched above them, how the mountains were erected and how the earth was spread beneath them? Has all this come about without the skill and craftsmanship of an All-Powerful, All Wise Designer? If they acknowledge that a Creator has created all this with great wisdom and power and that no one else is an associate with Him in their creation, why then do they refuse to accept Him alone as their Lord and Sustainer? And if they acknowledge that that God had the power to create all this, then on what rational ground do they hesitate to acknowledge that that God also has the power to bring about Resurrection, to recreate man, and to make Hell and Heaven? 

After making the truth plain by this concise and rational argument, the address turns from the disbelievers to the Holy Prophet (upon whom be peace) and he is told: "If these people do not acknowledge the truth, they may not; you have not been empowered to act with authority over them, so that you should coerce them into believing: your only task is to exhort, so exhort them. Ultimately they have to return to Us; then We shall call them to full account and shall inflict a heavy punishment on those who do not believe." 

By Nasir Mahmood