BELIEF IN THE HEREAFTER

Our Eternal Abode Is the Hereafter

According to the dictionary definition, the word “Hereafter” means the “Afterlife,” future life and existence beyond earthly life. This is the life beyond the Day of Judgment and will continue eternally. This includes the events and stages of the resurrection, the reckoning, scales of balance, intercession, Paradise, and Hell in its entirety. The greatest evidence and certainty of the Hereafter coming to pass is God’s pledge to His servants by stating that every soul will experience death. Death is unavoidable; God takes life, and it is to Him we will return. Many verses of the Qur’an relate that the resurrection after death is in accordance with the pledge of God.

As most are aware, the authenticity of a message or report depends on the conveyer. Therefore, the Creator, Whose pledge can never be a matter of dispute, tells us in the Qur’an that He will bring this universe which He created to an end, and on another occasion will revive its existence. As God is the One who relates this, and the arbiters of this topic are the Prophets who testify to this, then believing in the life after death is a duty of every believer.

A Person Aware of the Course of Creation Should Never Doubt the Resurrection after Death

If the One who created the book of the universe with its millions of created things without confusion and to perfection pledges that He will unite this once again, how can anybody possibly claim that it is beyond His power?

So let us now consider this verse of the Qur’an from this point of view:

The Day when We will roll up heaven as written scrolls are rolled up. We will bring the creation back into existence as easily as We originated it in the first instance. This is a binding promise on Us, and assuredly, We fulfill whatever We promise. (Al-Anbiya 21:104).

Indeed, with the coming of spring, the Lord will once again revive the trees and plantations whose seeds resemble one another, which perished during the winter, one by one without any confusion, and to perfection. The plan of the largest tree is protected and concealed in a seed no larger than the head of a pin. Would it be so difficult or impossible for God, the One who resurrects more than three hundred thousand creatures and plantations every spring without fail and to perfection, to resurrect a single being such as humans? Can anyone claim that this is impossible?

Again, we can approach this in comparison to another example: a craftsman who invents a machine from nothing and then later dismantles it and claims that he can build the machine a second time. How can anybody say, You will not be able to achieve this? As this is possible for a human whose power is limited, then how can anything prevent the One of divine power from achieving such a thing?

How can the Great Power, Who created everything and brought it into the realm of existence from nothing, be incapable of resurrecting the dead? Why should it be impossible for a human who was created from nothing to be resurrected once again?

The Qur’an answers the denier’s objection to resurrection with these words: “Does (that) human not bear in mind that We created him before when he was nothing?” (Maryam 19:67).

The creation of a human, his birth into this world and stages of development, occur externally with no intervention on his part. In these terms, the human experience of his own creation is the closest and most influential evidence of God and the Hereafter. It is unimaginable that a person aware of the course in his own creation could have doubt regarding the resurrection. God— Who created mankind, a creation of perception and awareness who is capable of thinking, hearing, and speaking from clay—can undoubtedly resurrect this creation once again.