Our subject today is Paradise and Hell.
The long journey starting from the spirit of Allah (swt) breathed in each individual until death, until barzakh, until the day of resurrection and the final judgement when certain people will get their records in their right hands. Some others they get it unfortunately in the left hand, some from the back of there.
So these are the ones who pass and get the final results of their exams . Here either the final destination will be the bliss, bounty and grace and that is called Paradise or it is the torture, the chastisement, the suffering which is called either jahannam or fire. There are approximately 160-70 references to Paradise in the Quran. Some 200 references about the fire and jahannam again in the Quran.
All are either giving the glad tidings, the good news for those who do good. This (amal al salih) must be combined with true faith. (Iman and amal al salih) (Iman and amal al salih)
These two, of course repentance is there, when they think something wrong is committed by them. So Iman and amal al salih work together in what? Getting the record in the right hand.
Those who disobeyed, denied the existence of God, denied the message of Prophet Mohammad (saww), did not act upon the teachings of Quran, about the teaching of the Prophet (saww), about the teachings of ahlulbayt who got that from the Prophet (saww), of course they will get it in the left hand.
There are many ayat to talk about the details of the bliss in paradise. Sometimes it is explained as gardens with rivers flow of honey milk and pure water. The birds, the barbecue, the fruits. Whatever you enjoy, whatever makes you happy and this is only to explain to us the way that we can imagine or comprehend that bliss otherwise how can Allah swt put it in words. How can Allah swt explain about the limitless and everlasting joy and bliss in Paradise to let us understand it in our limited understanding and comprehension.
We may get something for example when there is the best food, the best holiday for example all inclusive holiday, the joy when you don’t have to work hard, you don’t have to bother about anything, to worry about anything. Even those who can do it in this world like hedonism but still the worry is there, the shortcomings are there.
But it is short, you have to leave and depart.
But there it is forever. The everlasting bliss and joy and all these bounties of Allah swt. So
when Allah swt speaks about all these things, one thing is much more important, and that is (wa rithwanun min Allahi akbar) That Allah swt is pleased with you!
You passed the exam successfully. You met the challenges in a way that entitled you to be amongst those who Allah swt is pleased with.
(Ya ayyatuhal nafs al motma’inna irji’ee ila rabbiki raathiyatan marthiyya )
The soul with full tranquility go back to your lord.You are pleased with Allahs mercy, Allah swt is pleased with you. And this is what we understand it from the details of joy in paradise.
On the other hand, we see those who chose to deny the faith, reject Quran, disobey the commands of Allah swt. Those who didn’t bother with the prohibitions of the Quran and the sunnah of the Prophet Mohammad (saww)
Those who turn their back to all these advices and whatever advice and admonishment given to them they will feel completely deaf about it ,all right, or they joke about it.
Of course they will be held accountable for their deeds and the everlasting suffering will be waiting for them.
In some ahadeeth we see that not only on the day of judgement, even before that when the person is left in the grave.
(Al qabru imma rawthatun min riyaath il jannah oh hofratun min hofar il nar) This is the hadeeth from the holy Prophet (saww)
When the person is left in his grave, after a while a very handsome, nice young person comes to him to please him in the grave and very very nice and handsome, pleasing to the eye of a person. Of course here the body is not there because the death has stopped the body from functioning but the soul and the spirit are receiving in the grave maximum of joy. Why?
The person turns to that pleasing voice and face. Who are you? He says that I am your good deeds.
So the good deeds we do in this world are turned into a very nice and pleasing and friendly face to give us the joy in the grave and on the other hand those who spend all their life in shedding the blood, in spreading injustice, in torturing others, in being aggressive, these will see in the grave a very ugly face, stinks. and they are ready to do whatever they can in order to be kept away from that ugly face. Saying who are you?
He says that I am no one but your own deeds!
Your evil acts now are turned into that ugly face.
So this simple example tells us that how on the day of judgement and after the final judgement when people go either to Paradise or to fire of Hell, whatever they get is the reflection of their deeds.
In Surah al Waqi’a when we read about the bounties and the graces of Allah swt, the rewards from Allah swt, after that Allah swt says that (jazaa’an bima kanu ya’maloon)
This is the reward for what they were doing, and of course any suffering and chastisement is only the reflection of the disobedience, the mischief, the wrongdoing and all evil acts.
In the last 30 sessions we discussed the arguments about the existence of God.
We spoke about the ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments then we saw some applications for them in the Quranic references.
We spoke about the divine attributes of Allah swt and we observed that every goodness, power, knowledge and wisdom, the source of all of them is Allah swt so the absolute and perfect existence, unlimited existence belongs to Allah swt and HE is the source of every goodness, every power, every wisdom and knowledge and that is what we summarise it in one of the (ta’qeebaat) after salah and say (Allahumma ma binaa min n’matin fa mink)
We have nothing, we are poor, we are needy.
(Ya ayyuhal nas! antum al fuqaraa’u ila Allah wAllahu howa alghaniyyu al hameed)
You are in need to Allahs mercy in every aspect and Allah swt is the needless.
After that we discussed one important task in the (aqeeda) and that is Allahs justice. Although the Ash’arites including all the four (mathaahib) they do not believe in the justice as the Imamiyya and the Mu’tazilites believe in, we saw that free will negating the predestination is so important within the ayaat from the logical and reasonable arguments we managed to explore and we noticed that the best thing to separate human beings from animals is this free will and accountability only is possible when there is free will.
We can’t admire somebody for being righteous and pious if they did not have free will.
We can’t describe anyone as a sinful sinner and those who are misled or misleading unless they have the ability not to be. So freewill is very very important. Then we noticed that Allah swt in many ayaat says that HE does not wrong anybody.
For this we concluded from the (ahadeeth) of ahlulbayt (as) that we are given the freewill and the justice of Allah swt is so important to believe in.
The third section we tried to discuss the Prophethood in two different areas;
The general prophethood and the specific.
By the general we speak about the whole prophets who are ambassadors sent by Allah swt to show us the right path and we said that there are many many prophets and messengers sent by Allah swt to guide the mankind to the right path but the very distinguished and the very prominent out of them are five, these are the prophets of (ulu al a’zm) with the (risala) or message which is for the universal purpose and not for a particular group and these are Nouh (as), Ibrahim (as), Musa (as), Isa (as) and the Prophet Muhammad (saww).
We spoke about the characteristics of the Prophets. Spoke about revelation and the role of revelation in passing the wisdom and every word of Allah swt to the mankind.
We spoke about the miracles and how important the miracles are to prove that these are connected with Allah, supported by Allah swt and we spoke about the (Isma) the infallibility, being immune from error because if they are not immune from error they will err and we don’t trust them. Trust is very important for following and obeying and accepting the words of somebody so if the guide himself errs and does mistake how can i trust him? How can i follow him? And that is the opinion of the Imamiya about the infallibility or being free from error when they talk about the Prophet.
Having discussed the general Prophethood we moved to the particular and specific prophethood and that is the message of the Prophet Mohammad (saww)
We spoke about the beginning of the message. We spoke about some of his miracles but particularly the eternal and everlasting miracle of the Prophet (saww) is the Quran.
We spoke about a few points in the Quran, of course we didn’t have time to cover all of them and then we moved to the divine leadership (Imamah)
We saw that it is a covenant from Allah swt.
Its not left to people to chose and elect, it doesn’t make sense and we saw from the conduct of the Prophet (saww) that he never left Madinah even for a day unless he appointed someone to be in charge of the Muslim nation.
How could he possibly leave the whole Muslim nation without leaving someone in charge?
Furthermore we see that the first and second Caliph, they where more concerned and cared for the future of the Muslim nation. The first appointed the second. The second arranged for a council of six, but if the Prophet (saww), had the Prophet (saww) did not bother or did not care about the future of the nation which meant that the (sahaaba) where more concerned about the religion and continuity of Islam more than the Prophet himself which is illogical, we can’t accept that. So we spoke about hadeeth al Ghadeer, hadeeth Al Thaqalayn, Mobahala AND charity given by Imam Ali (as) during his (rukoo’) and the Ayah 55 in Surah number 5 specifically refers to that incident.
All these can be concluded in one word, and that is the Prophet (saww) DID appoint the Vicegerent, the (Wasi), the Caliph, the Successor after him and repeated that many times especially during the farewell pilgrimage when he took allegiance from everybody about the authority, mastership and guardianship of Imam Ali (as) and we moved in the end to resurrection to speak about
the spiritual and physical resurrection. To speak about necessity of resurrection logically and according to the Ayaat, the witnesses on the day of judgement, the intersession which was the important task in our (aqeeda) and in the end about the Paradise and the Hell.
May Allah swt enable us all to do what pleases him and leads to that final abode of Paradise and avoid us and keep us away from the wrath of Allah swt, from disobedience which causes us the suffering and the chastisement of Hell.
Allahumma sali ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad wa a’jil farajahum.