1. Adh-dhul wa
hawaan: Disgrace & Degradation
Adh-dhul wa
hawaaan means the disgrace and the degradation that the ones who rejected truth
go through on the day of judgment.
Allah says in
the Qur’an: “The Day when they will come out of the graves quickly as racing to
a goal.” (70:43) In reality, they are not running to a particular place. They
are running because of the events happening on that day and the fear in the
heart.
Allah describes
it in another ayah as wa maa hum bi sukaarah – they are running around as if
drunk. “You shall see mankind as in a drunken state, yet they will not be
drunken, but severe will be the Torment of Allah.” (22:2)
Allah says,
“Consider not that Allah is unaware of that which the dhalimun (polytheists,
wrong-doers, etc.) do…” (14:42). Many of us, when we see oppression and dhulm,
we wonder, “How could this happen and how could Allah allow it to happen?”
Allah continues: “but He gives them respite up to a Day when the eyes will
stare in horror. (They will be) hastening forward with necks outstretched,
their heads raised up (towards the sky), their gaze returning not towards them
and their hearts empty (from thinking because of extreme fear).” (14:42-43) Imagine the scene – the people are
staring and their eyes cannot blink because you cannot afford a moment of
unawareness that day. In the dunya, all of its life, the eye was asleep. That
is the day when everything will be revealed. Allah also says that the hearts
will be like air that day – anything that happens that day will throw a fear
shock in their bodies.
Allah subhaana
wa ta’aala says, “The Command of Allah has come up; so do not seek to hasten
it…” (16:1) Pretty soon, we’re going to be there. All of this stuff we are
describing on papers, we’re going to see with our own eyes.
Look back at
your life – all your memories. If you combine them and narrate them, it will
take half an hour, an hour. Pretty soon, we will be lying on our beds, ready to
pass away.
Yawm alQiyaamah
is one of the names of the day of judgment. Qiyaamah means standing. People
will be standing that day.
Miqdad b. Aswad
reported: I heard Allah’s Messenger (may peace he upon him) as saying: “On the
Day of Resurrection, the sun would draw so close to the people that there would
be left only a distance of one mile.” Sulaim b. Amir said: By Allah, I do not
know whether he meant by “mile” the mile of the (material) earth or an
instrument used for applying collyrium [alkohl] to the eye. (The Prophet is,
however, reported to have said): “The people would be submerged in perspiration
[sweat] according to their deeds, some up to their knees; some up to the waist
and some would have the bridle of perspiration” And, while saying this, Allah’s
Apostle (may peace be upon him) pointed his hand towards his mouth. [Muslim,
40/6852] The righteous ones will be under the shade of the ‘arsh of Allah.
According to the deeds of people, they will sweat on that day.
A lot of ayaat
in the Qur’an demand imagination in the Qur’an. Allah gives images in the
Qur’an. Especially with al-akhirah, Allah uses images to convey the
information. Allah says, “And the Day the wrongdoer will bite on his hands [in
regret] he will say, ‘Oh, I wish I had taken with the Messenger a way!’”
(25:27) In a state of extreme regret, you could bite on your finger. Allah did
not say they are biting on their fingers or hands. Allah says they will bite
their hands; imagine them biting and crushing their bones, but not feeling that
pain because the pain of regret is more. Even though regret is psychological
pain, the physical pain of biting the hands would be less... and why the
regret? “I wish that I had followed the Messenger.”
Allah says, “And
on the Day when the Hour will be established, the Mujrimun (disbelievers,
sinners, criminals, polytheists, etc.) will be plunged into destruction with
deep regrets, sorrows, and despair.” (30:12). Who will you argue with and what
will you argue about? They just give up and lose hope.
Allah says, “Upon
that Day, (the ones) who have disbelieved and disobeyed the Messenger do like
that the earth were leveled with them….” (4:42) This is a person who was
attached to dunya. They loved and valued life so much. On the Day of Judgment,
they will ask Allah to level them with the earth. Allah says in another ayah,
“When the disbeliever would say, ‘I wish that I were dirt!’”
2. Ihbaat
ul-A’maal: Voiding the Deeds
Ihbaat ul-a’maal
means voiding the deeds. “As for those who disbelieve, their deeds are like a
mirage in a desert…” (24:39) Mirages are an optical illusion because of the
fumes, the air and the humidity. You keep going towards it, and it goes further
away. Allah uses this as an illustration for the deeds of the disbeliever; they
are like a mirage in a desert. The continuation of the ayah is: “…The thirsty
one thinks it to be water, until he comes up to it, he finds it to be nothing,
but he finds Allah with him, Who will pay him his due (Hell). And Allah is
Swift in taking account.” (24:39)
Allah also says,
“Or [the state of a disbeliever] is like the darkness in a vast deep sea,
overwhelmed with a great wave topped by a great wave, topped by dark clouds,
darkness, one above another, if a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see
it! And he for whom Allah has not appointed light, for him there is no light.”
(24:40) The deeds are like darkness; the more they do them, the more darkness
accumulates to the extent that one of them extends their hands in front of them
and they can’t see it. This will literally happen to them on the Day of
Judgment; they will lose the light on the siraat. We know that the siraat is
very dark. The believers will be given light. The ones who rejected faith in
Allah, it would be pitch black dark and they couldn’t see their own hands in
front of them.
Allah gives
another analogy, in which He talks about the money that they spend. Allah says,
“The likeness of what they spend in this world is the likeness of a wind which
is extremely cold; it struck the harvest of a people who did wrong against
themselves and destroyed it, (i.e. the good deed of a person is only accepted
if he is a monotheist and believes in all the Prophets of Allah, including
Christ and Muhammad SAW). Allah wronged them not, but they wronged themselves.”
(3:117) In other words, it’s like frostbite that destroys the plant. They
nourished this plant, and when the time has come to harvest the fruit and they
are in great need of it, they find nothing. This money is spent now in the sake
of their objectives, but on the Day of Judgment, it will all be waste.
When we talk
about the ayaat that talks about their deeds being useless, we might wonder,
“Isn’t Allah Just? Won’t He reward the people according to their deeds?” To
clarify that, Allah says, “…It was not Allah Who wronged them, but they wronged
themselves.” (29:40) Allah will hold you accountable to your deeds.
A third analogy
given to their deeds: “The parable of those who disbelieve in their Lord is
that their works are as ashes, on which the wind blows furiously on a stormy
day, they shall not be able to get aught of what they have earned. That is the
straying, far away (from the Right Path).” (14:18) Imagine a mountain of ashes
is your deeds. It appears to be huge; you have done a lot of deeds. You go
there to collect your reward, but a storm comes and blows it all away. You’re
trying to hold it – but what can you hold? They are ashes. There is no
substance to any deeds that are not done for the sake of Allah. Look at the
eloquence of the illustration of the Qur’an. The ashes are a lot, but are
nothing because of one of two reasons:
1) These deeds
are missing ikhlaas (sincerity) &
2) They’re
missing the quality of ‘ittibaa` (following RasulAllah sallallahu ‘alayhi wa
sallam).
For any deed to
be acceptable, it must fulfill two requirements:
1) Ikhlaas: sincerity of doing it for Allah
alone. Justice says that you shouldn’t expect Allah to reward you for it. If
you didn’t do it for Allah, then how can you expect Allah to reward you for it?
That is exactly what will happen on the Day of Judgment. Allah subhaana wa
ta’aala will tell the people, whoever used to worship the idols, go the idols
and let them reward you! Whoever used to worship human beings, go the human
beings and let them reward you. Whoever used to worship the angels, go angels
and let them reward you. Whoever used to worship Me, I shall reward you.
2) Al-‘Ittibaa`: the act has to be done the
right way. You cannot invent the way you want to worship Allah subhaana wa
ta’aala. You have to do it the way that pleases Allah, because Allah knows
better than you. Therefore, leave it up to Allah.
Allah gives
another analogy. He says, “And We shall turn to whatever deeds they
(disbelievers, polytheists, sinners, etc.) did, and We shall make such deeds as
scattered floating particles of dust.” (25:23) Allah says that He will make
their acts habaa`. What is habaa`? ‘Ali ibn Abi Taalib(ra) describes to us
habaa`. If you are in a dark or a semi dark room and there is some light coming
in through a window, you can see small particles in the light. Habaa` are those
small particles. They exist in the air, but you can especially see it if you’re
in a dark room and there’s some light coming in.
Islam has a
concept for happiness, loss, etc. We should align our concepts and understandings
to the Islamic definition, because sometimes we think that happiness is
something different. For example, if you think of loss, you may think of
business, but that isn’t the Islamic definition of loss. Allah subhaana wa
ta’aala says, “Say: Shall We inform you who will be the greatest losers by
their works? Those whose effort go astray in the life of the world, and yet
they reckon that they do good work. Those are they who disbelieve in the
revelations of their Lord and in the meeting with Him. Therefore their works
are vain, and on the Day of Resurrection We assign no weight to them. That is
their reward: hell, because they disbelieved, and made a jest of Our
revelations and Our messengers.” (18:103-106)
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