The one fact nobody denies is the fact of death of every living being one day. We know that the king and the beggar, the rich and the poor, the man and the woman, the male and the female species of all animals and plants have to die inevitably one day. The fact of death as the ultimate reality of life is recognised across barriers of time, culture, space or race. This fact has goaded the wise in all times to ponder over death-related questions such as what lies ahead, beyond death. Thinkers have been prompted to think deeply about life and last human journey: Its Creator, His scheme of creation of and the purpose behind life; the purpose of life having been acknowledged, how shall a person be evaluated on the basis of his actions in this world and his life adjudged a success or failure. This is very important as the entire planning for life will have to be done after fixation of the purpose of life. For, if there were to be no accountability for one’s actions, the need to observe a strict code of conduct or subject oneself to rigorous discipline in life will be meaningless.
GIFTS OF SENSES AND LOGIC
We know that human beings have been gifted with faculties of learning and acquiring knowledge about our surroundings, and also discovering ‘right’ from ‘wrong’ and ‘good’ from ‘evil’. God Almighty has given us eyes to see, ears to hear, skin to feel through touch the texture, smoothness, roughness, and the temperature of the touched object. Besides being a help in speech, we use the tongue to taste, and the nose to smell. In a manner of saying, physical attributes of things surrounding us can be learnt through the five senses.
As a human being is a brainy, observant social being, he is able to analyse things through logic and comes to form an opinion of various matters connected with different activities of life. In the light of his opinions and decisions, he acts to secure fulfilment of his interests, including those in spiritual and metaphysical domains. He adopts most suitable course of action to lead a peaceful and productive life. Also God has given him will, choice to adopt one of the several alternative choices, and act accordingly. Securing correct knowledge about metaphysical matters is much more important than knowing physical condition of lifeless things within scope of study of science. On the other hand, the Divine Guidance in the Qur’ān constantly invites mankind to follow the path of the Messenger. The path shown by him alone is worth adopting; all other paths invented by man are false and bound to lead to failure in this world and the world hereafter.
DIFFERENT VIEWS ABOUT LIFE
As a consequence of inquisitiveness of the unseen and human quest for knowledge about what happened after death, following three distinct theories have emerged:
1. Some people opine that with death every bit of a man’s life comes to an end, nothing remains to be thought of and after this life-ending event, there cannot be another life. They believe that the chemical constituents and other elements constituting life go back to their original source where they came from and become part of our surroundings – clay, water, air, etc. in accordance with the old saying: “Dust thou art, to dust returnest.”
These are views of the atheist type of people, not believing in the existence of a Superpower regulating life and all other natural phenomena and activities. They are devoid of belief in life’s purpose or happenings after death. They consider this viewpoint a scientific one. They think that this is the only correct explanation finding support from Western material sciences whose scope does not go beyond human observation and experimentation and inference.
FALLACY OF THIS THEORY
Claiming this theory to be based on science is gross injustice to science. This theory leaves the soul thirsty and the intellect hungry as it does not provide satisfactory answers to many questions – creation coming into existence without the Creator, the act of creation without an objective, our good actions going unrewarded and bad actions not inviting matching punishment. The Qur’ān says, “Do you think you have been created in vain and that you shall not be made to return to us,” (23: 115). It is a common day experience that quite often evildoers go scot-free while miseries, deprivation, poverty, sufferings, social humiliation or neglect piercing the self-respect and grievously hurting the soul are the lot of the righteous. Similarly perpetuators of worst crimes of war, on unprecedentedly large scale, even if ever punished, do not get their due, rather they cannot get their due in this short span of life which alone is said to be the duration during which punishment can be given as they conceive no life after death. The people believing that ‘resurrection’ of man is impossible but the Qur’ān says: “Does man think that We (Allah) cannot assemble his bones? Nay, We are able to put together in perfect order (even) the very tips of his fingers” (75: 3-4).
INCONSISTENCY OF THE THEORY
Non-existence of hereinafter inflicts dent and deformation in human in-built psyche which craves for Divine Justice. He cries for understanding of crime and punishment.
He wants unalloyed justice beyond human interpolation, a complete scheme of things to exist so that all human actions inevitably result in unavoidable matching consequences. If we take a view of history of last 100 years or so, we find two fierce World Wars fought with consequent human catastrophe. Adolf Hitler of Germany showered death on 60 million Jews, incinerating them in gal chambers; Mussolini of Italy caused death to several lakhs people. Earlier Joseph Stalin of Russia brought death and destruction while throwing off the yoke of repressive Czar’s regime, on a scale, outdone by Hitler alone. Some 2300 years back about one lakh people were killed in Kalinga War before this large scale bloodshed stirred the conscience of Emperor Ashoka to adopt Buddhism to promote non-violence as a strong policy of the state. These landmarks of history clearly bring out the inappropriateness, inadequacy and constraints of life span of human life to receive in full measure befitting reward for his lifelong sufferings despite his noble conduct or adequate punishment for his horrendous crimes on a matching scale.
2. There is another group of people who do believe that the effects of a person’s good or bad actions must visit him but they do not conceptualise resurrection of human beings in human form to receive their due after their physical death. They believe that a person is repeatedly regenerated in this world to bear the consequences of his deeds. They firmly believe that he will assume in the next generation the shape of some animal, such as a cat or a dog or some other animal. He may, after transmigration of soul, become a tree or even a man of some lower kind.
On the other hand his good actions in this life may bring for him a birth into a higher class with attached benefits of comforts and luxuries. This unfounded, erroneous and most damaging viewpoint is found in some religions of the East. They say that such a process of rebirth continues till the net balance sheet of good and bad deeds (karmas) comes to a naught. If the net balance after any death in the long series of births and deaths in the journey of transmigration of soul is found to be positive or negative, they are bound to be born again to suffer their sins or enjoy their good-deed-balance.
LOGICALLY UNSUSTAINABLE
This thinking is baffling as it does not tell about the form of life at its inception – whether it was man who had got him entangled in ever-continuing cycle of rebirth with lower forms resulting from his bad deeds. Alternatively it could have been in a lower form with good actions elevating that life form to the highest stage of being a ‘man’. Thus no form can be said to be the starting point as every life form is liable to go up or down the ladder of rebirth according to actions in a particular birth.
Another important point is that if this theory is accepted, there cannot exist a paradise or a hell beyond this world itself as the state of having net balance of good or evil deeds does not entitle any ‘jeev’ (living being) to paradise or hell while some religious texts of oriental religions do speak of a paradise and a hell also, e.g. in reference to Arjun’s emotional encounter with Abhimanyu, who was Arjun’s son on earth in paradise. Abhimanyu is said to have rejected Arjun’s contention, saying one has to play roles in the world as one acts in a drama for some time as somebody’s son or father temporarily.
Yet another unanswered query relates to procreation and reproduction, which is an attribute of life and which shows population in general, to be increasing whereas even a few souls liberated from the cycle of rebirth will bring down the total number of ‘souls’ in circulation.
3. There is yet another viewpoint – belief in the Day of Judgement, the raising of the dead, man’s answerability before the Creator, and meting out of reward and punishment in accordance with his actions in this world. This viewpoint is based on the proposition that this world will come to its end one day. God will annihilate the entire creation. He will evolve another cosmos, higher and far more superior to the cosmos which He would have destroyed on the day of hashr.
This theory is undoubtedly the only correct description of what is to come. The forces working here are sure to be exhausted one day as they are limited and transitory by nature. The scientists believe that one day the sun will become cold; the stars will collide with one another. The whole system of the universe, because of loss of all energy, will be thrown out of order and destroyed.
As regards the possibility of raising of the dead, every sane person can understand that creating man a second time is not impossible for God, rather easier as man’s experience of doing a work second time is of course easier.
SOUND BASIS AND SOLID JUSTIFICATION
As to the need to resurrect man, we see that man, during his worldly life, had at his disposal astonishing God-given capabilities of physique, intellect and will power along with uncountable natural resources of forests, minerals, water, land, air, etc. It is but natural for man to be accountable for their use or misuse or abuse. There being the need to probe man’s actions and the power of the Omnipotent Almighty Allāh to resurrect man, the concept of ‘life after death’ is the most genuine concept which cannot be denied except by insane, haughty, mischief-loving, myopic persons who have not observed all that they encounter in everyday life or have failed to arrive at the correct inference. They say that power and accountability go together; no power-wielding entity can be absolved of accountability. This is the common teaching of all Prophets (peace and blessings of Allah be to them all).
NO OTHER THEORY WITHSTANDS REASONING
Life on this earth will become horrible if all people reject the idea of life after death. Belief in Akhirah results in a tremendous influence on the life of a believer. A Muslim knows that Allāh is watching all his actions and he will be brought to justice for his misdeeds on the Day of Judgement. He, as a consequence of this belief, will be responsible, controlled and cautious whereas a disbeliever in life hereafter will exercise no restraint or control on his actions. Thus belief in life hereafter is the decisive factor affecting the conduct of man. Spread of large scale corruption in all walks of life, for instance, is the result of disbelief in Akhirah as those indulging in corruption fear no punishment for fraud, deceit, bungling, depriving others of their genuine rights to amass huge fortunes for themselves. Thus we see that faith in Akhirah is such that it gives meaning to other articles of faith such as faith in God, His Messengers, divine revelations, angels and fate. Today crisis in economic, social and political relations – challenges confronting humanity – are the natural outcome of crises in ideals, values and institutions, and man can look for their satisfactory resolution and solution by following unalloyed Islamic teachings and sticking to Islamic articles of faith!