Source Note: This is a direct English rendering of a YouTube clip by Mr. Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, Al Mawrid. The content has been translated faithfully into English with grammatical refinement, without interpretive additions.
Question: When a person is born, whatever religion he is born into, 99 percent of the time he follows that religion. So how would it be just that those who are born Muslim have such a high probability of remaining Muslim and then entering Paradise? If Allah calls Himself the Judge, this does not seem like a very judicial decision. At least Danish does not think so.
This leads to another question of mine. There is naturally
doubt in a person’s heart. I also sometimes have doubts: when I wake up for
Fajr in the morning and I am sleepy, am I really doing the right thing, or
perhaps we are mistaken? So I want an answer to both questions.
The second question arising from this is: Shaytan had
seen Hell and Paradise—he had seen everything. If someone were to show me
Paradise and Hell, and Allah Himself were to tell me directly, I would never
commit a sin. So how could Shaytan, after seeing all of this, go completely mad
and rebel so enormously? How is that possible?
Response: Regarding the first question, I would
say that this is a myth—the Qur’an has rejected it. The Qur’an says that the
group affiliations you have in this world—some calling themselves Muslims, some
Jews, some Christians—will not be the basis upon which judgment is made in the
Hereafter.
A criterion of merit has been established for the Day of
Judgment. Whoever fulfills that criterion will enter Paradise. Allah has stated
this while mentioning all these groups, beginning with the Muslims:
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَالَّذِينَ
هَادُوا وَالنَّصَارَىٰ وَالصَّابِئِينَ
In other words, no one will enter Paradise simply on the
basis of belonging to one of these groups. When the Jews made precisely this
claim—that they were Allah’s chosen people—Allah said, in effect, “Show Me
when I ever made such a promise.”
If you ever read Surah al-Baqarah with a simple translation,
you will see that the entire subject of the Surah is that salvation is not
based on belonging to a particular group. There is a criterion, and whoever
fulfills it will enter Paradise.
There, these divisions and group affiliations will all
disappear. People will be raised according to their true reality. Whoever
possesses genuine faith will be recognized there as a true Muslim. The meaning
of being a Muslim will then become clear.
Here, we are simply born into a particular family. We take
the name and identity of whatever religion we were born into, and then continue
living largely unconsciously. The Qur’an has never said that this is the basis
of salvation. It has made the matter absolutely clear and has stated the
criterion in three points. This is the standard against which every individual
will be judged.
Yes, someone may have lived in a remote place. Yes, perhaps
the message of a prophet reached him—or perhaps it did not. These circumstances
will also be taken into consideration. But the fundamental criterion is clear.
The Jews made exactly the same claim that we sometimes make
today, and Allah rejected it with such force that someone who genuinely reads
the Qur’an should not even have this question arise in his mind. These are
merely the ideas of our ordinary, ignorant people.
Regarding the second question
As for the second question, let me say this: I know what a
human being is. Iblis was from the jinn, and I do not know the nature of rebellion
among the jinn.
My experience regarding human beings is that even if you
remove the veil and show them reality directly, they can still rebel. They
stand against God. They stand against His prophets. A prophet may lift the veil
to a very great extent before them, yet they are still prepared to fight
against him.
Consider Abu Jahl at the Battle of Badr. Have you ever seen
the prayer he made there?*
He too raised his hands in prayer and called upon Allah. This gives you an idea
of how far a human being—who has been given intention and free choice—can go.
Iblis was from the jinn. The jinn, too, have been given
intention and free choice like us. They have been placed under trial like us.
They too will one day be brought before God for judgment. They too have
Paradise and Hell. That is why rebellion also arose among them.
This rebellion became particularly evident when the human
being was created, and that is why this story became so prominent.
Now look at Surah al-Jinn. The jinn themselves say that
among them there are many rebellious people. This does not refer to Iblis. They
also say that among them are righteous people and those who remain on the right
path.
They too are a community like ours—a very large community.
Allah has created them within this material universe, and they too live within
it. The Qur’an has described many things about them. Their situation of being
tested is also essentially similar to ours.
Therefore, we should not conclude that only Iblis rebelled
after seeing realities. We human beings also repeatedly rebel even after seeing
realities.
Look at the story of Pharaoh in the Qur’an. Look at what
happened when Moses stood before him and the veil was lifted to such an extent.
The Qur’an says that nine signs were given to him—nine extraordinary signs
became manifest.**
After reading the details of those signs, a person is
astonished: how could anyone still deny after seeing all this? And when did
Pharaoh finally believe? When he was drowning and destruction had overtaken
him.
So when a human being stands at the station of intention and
free choice, there are essentially two kinds of tests in which we are placed.
One is the test of group affiliation and partisanship. You
see people bound by sects, by races and nations; people become prepared to kill
and be killed for these identities.
Similarly, there is another deeply rooted human tendency stated by Adler***: the
instinct for superiority. Allah has described this as one of the strongest
human dispositions. It manifests itself among nations; races fight one another
over it, and human beings develop feelings of superiority and arrogance.
What is all this? Do they not understand the principles upon
which this world has been created? Therefore,
there is nothing surprising about Iblis having done this. His story is
mentioned so prominently because at the very beginning of our own human story,
he rebelled. Among the jinn, however, such rebellion had existed even before
this. There were already rebellious beings among them.
Because he rebelled in relation to us, his story has been
narrated in the Qur’an and by the prophets in connection with our own story.
And as for the claim that he had already seen Paradise and
Hell, that is not correct. He had not seen Paradise and Hell. Their existence
in the sense of his having seen them has not been established. When they come,
we too will see them.
Arranged by:
Aamir I. Yazdani
MPhil Islamic Thought & Civilization (PAKISTAN)
MSc Irrigation Engineering (UK)
*[Note: The
report commonly cited is that at Badr, Abu Jahl invoked Allah for a judgment
between the two sides. The wording reported is:
اللَّهُمَّ أَقْطَعُنَا لِلرَّحِمِ، وَآتَانَا بِمَا لَا
نَعْرِفُ، فَأَحِنْهُ الْغَدَاةَ، اللَّهُمَّ أَيُّنَا كَانَ أَحَبَّ إِلَيْكَ،
وَأَرْضَى عِنْدَكَ، فَانْصُرْهُ الْيَوْمَ
“O Allah, whoever among us has severed the ties of kinship
and brought us something we do not recognize, destroy him this morning. O
Allah, whichever of us is more beloved and more pleasing to You, grant him
victory today.”
This is particularly striking because Abu Jahl was
effectively asking Allah Himself to determine which side was in the right,
believing that Allah would grant victory to whoever was more beloved and
pleasing to Him. The report connects this with Qur’an 8:19:
إِن تَسْتَفْتِحُوا فَقَدْ جَاءَكُمُ الْفَتْحُ...
“If you sought a judgment, then the judgment has come to
you…” (Qur’an 8:19).]
**[The
statement of nine clear signs is in the Qur’an:
وَلَقَدْ آتَيْنَا مُوسَىٰ تِسْعَ آيَاتٍ بَيِّنَاتٍ
“And We certainly gave Moses nine clear signs.”
— Qur’an 17:101
The Bible, particularly Exodus 7–12, describes a series of
signs/plagues before Pharaoh, but the traditional biblical account counts ten
plagues, not nine.
Plague: Bible
reference
1.
Water turned to blood: Exodus 7:14–25
2.
Frogs: Exodus 8:1–15
3.
Gnats / Lice: Exodus 8:16–19
4.
Flies: Exodus 8:20–32
5.
Death of livestock: Exodus 9:1–7
6.
Boils: Exodus 9:8–12
7.
Hail: Exodus 9:13–35
8.
Locusts: Exodus 10:1–20
9.
Darkness: Exodus 10:21–29
10. Death of
the firstborn: Exodus
11:1–10; 12:29–32]
***[Alfred Adler, the Austrian
psychologist and founder of Individual Psychology, regarded the striving for
superiority as a fundamental human tendency. He argued that people naturally
seek to overcome feelings of limitation, develop their abilities, and achieve
significance. This striving can become unhealthy when it turns into a desire to
dominate or feel superior to others; ideally, it should lead to
self-improvement, competence, and contribution to society.]
