The question I had does slightly overlap with something that was answered by the last gentleman. It’s two verses from Surah Bani Israel. Yes. I’ll read the English translation. Yes, please. It’s the English translation and the commentary that was given on one of the verses that Yes. made me wonder what it was going on about. It says, Call to mind the day when we shall summon every people with their leader. Then whoso shall be given his book in his right hand, such will read their book eagerly, and they will not be wronged a whit.
But whoso is blind in this world shall be blind in the hereafter, and even more astray from the way. In the commentary, those who do not make proper use of their spiritual eyes in this world would remain deprived of spiritual sight in the life to come. The Qur’an speaks of those who do not ponder over the signs of God and do not benefit by them as blind. Such men will remain spiritually blind in the next life also. But I thought they wouldn’t remain spiritually blind in the next life also. You know, as against that categorical statement of the Holy Qur’an and also the commentary further explaining the meaning of that declaration, you believe that it shouldn’t be so?
Is that what the question is? No, I thought that those who did not believe in Islam, although they are spiritually blind in this world, they would not remain spiritually blind in the next world, because it says here, such men will remain spiritually blind in the next life also. This is the declaration of the Holy Qur’an. No, that is the commentary. No, no, the Holy Qur’an also says. Yes, but whoso is blind in this world shall be blind in the hereafter. In the hereafter, yes. These are the words of the Holy Qur’an, not the word of the commentary. No, that was, yes, but I thought they were going to be reformed in the next world, so how can they remain spiritually blind?
You know, what is explained here, what Allah wants us to understand is the fact that here we are given a chance to begin to see the light of God and to shape the destiny of our soul’s future. Having not availed of this opportunity, we have ourselves created a blind soul. Now what is this soul as a relation to our life here and how is it influenced by our actions? That is the most important question which would lead us to the better understanding of this verse.
Now you have raised this question, so I will have to deal with it in depth now, otherwise you will not be able to understand it in yeses or noses. So, when we receive a message of God and we do not follow it and reject it, we begin to turn for baser pleasures at the cost of some higher pleasures. We do not acquire the taste for those higher pleasures. The result is that we go on travelling downhill to coarser and coarser materialistic pleasures and ultimately we lose the taste, the entire taste of what is spiritual. In a crude form of explanation, of illustration, I can say that if some people are fond of music and the pop music and the most modern materialistic type of music and things, he develops a taste for that music and if he happens to also be a Muslim, he gradually shifts away from the taste of listening to the Holy Quran to that of this carnal taste. I call it carnal as compared to that spiritual. The same is true of the followers of the Bible.
Those who believe in Jesus Christ, sometimes they take pleasure in reading his word. But when they are driven far away into the materialistic pleasures, they sometimes lose touch. So that ultimately the sense of deriving pleasure from the word of Jesus Christ dies out completely and withers out. The result is that no longer can they enjoy the word of God as they understand it and the very cells, spiritual cells which are responsible for these pleasures, wither away. So this is the time of developing the spiritual taste for those particular things. When you die not having developed that taste, you will arise again with the same deformity. It is like having been born without an organ, having been born without a faculty. If somebody has become blind later on in one’s life, some cure could be sought. But somebody who is born blind, no cure can be sought for him. Because initially he has not been provided with that faculty.
So compare this period of our life which we call the first period of our life as against the later period after death I mean. This is very similar to the period of an embryo in the formative stage in the belly of his mother. If he does not develop certain organs or certain faculties during that formative stage of nine months, when he is delivered as a baby, he would remain deprived of those faculties.
So he enters a world either blind or deaf or without the sense of touch or without some other faculty. Sense of heat for instance. This is exactly what we do to our souls. And this is what to which Allah is pointing out. That if you cease to see the beauty of godliness, if you cease to enjoy the sight of Allah as you imagine him to be, and you take pleasure in nearness of Allah and begin to see the spiritual values, then ultimately your cells will die out and you will become totally blind. Those who are totally blind, they would rise in the next world as totally blind. But there are many stages between the people with full sight and the blind.
Some with lesser vision, some with partial blindness, some with color blindness and so on and so forth. So it doesn’t mean that all the infidels or those who do not believe in the messenger of God will be born totally blind. Not so. Some of them would have partial blindness. Some of them would of course have total blindness. But those who have not acquired any taste for all that is godly whatsoever, how can they suddenly develop those muscles and those cells and those glands, in material terms, or those organs like eyes, out of nothing? That is hell. That in fact is the hell which is described here in this verse. God will have become closer.
So those who have drawn pleasure in this world, seeing the light of God, when those curtains are lifted, which are between us in this world and God, not entirely but to some degree in the next world, will enjoy the sight much more. Like looking at some beautiful object from behind the curtain, through which the light is not totally blocked but it is partially blocked. You see certain features which appear attractive to you. And that is also good. But you have a craving to see the entire face if that beauty enamours you and attracts you too much. So imagine when the face is lifted, that is the heaven of sight. When the veil is lifted, that is the heaven of sight.
So comparing this with our relation to Allah, here if we have begun to see him and enjoy him, enjoy seeing him, and this I use in the spiritual terms of course, after the death, when we are reborn, we will see Allah with less veils in between, with comparatively more manifestation of Allah’s beauty. So because we will have developed a taste already, so we will enjoy that so much. That is heaven. And when Allah has become closer to us and we have not enjoyed the taste for God, that closeness of Allah would become a hell to those who are blind. Like again, I draw your attention to that comparison between television and the word of God.
If somebody has developed a very strong attraction towards worldly music in television and radio, and then he is made to listen all the time to the recitation of the Holy Quran and Mullah’s speeches, and also the recitation of New Testament by the Church Fathers, that would be hell to him. What a punishment. He has no taste for these things and all the time this is constantly, you know, and so boringly fed upon him, I mean thrashed upon him. I know many people in Pakistan who have stopped seeing television ever since the Mullahs have made their appearance so, you know, abundant.
So if you have no taste for God and you run away from him in this world, and there he is, closer, that would be a punishment for these people. So the same thing, in reality, would decide the fate of somebody’s hell and somebody’s heaven. This is why the Holy Quran tells us that heaven extends the whole universe. And also when the Holy Prophet of Islam declared that the hell also covers the whole universe, the companions were flabbergasted. They were surprised. They said, if the entire universe is covered with heaven, where the hell is? And the answer was, the hell also covers the entire universe. They said, how come it? The Holy Prophet told them that it is so, but you can’t understand. This is the meaning. No separate spaces are required for hell and heaven.
Only the attitude of people would decide which is hell and which is heaven. Hazrat Masih-e-Maud alaihi salatu wasalam, in his book, The Teachings of Islam, has made it most beautifully clear by drawing our attention to one illustration. He says that if somebody is very thirsty, he’s almost dying of thirst, and he requires liquid as well as some food as energy, some solid food as well. And he’s also oppressed by heat. Then suddenly he’s provided with a large bunch of sweet grapes, well-cooled. That would be like heaven to him, wouldn’t it? Yet, at his side is a person who is so sick, he’s vomiting constantly.
And he can’t think of anything sweet. And the same, also he’s hungry, he’s even devoid of energy, much more than the other person, because he’s also vomiting. He’s throwing his liquid out and he’s dehydrated. And he’s provided with the same heaven in the form of that bunch of grapes. Will that be heaven to him? No. He would feel like slapping at the face of the person who insists on him eating some of the grapes. This is how the children behave to their parents when they’re sick. He says, remove this, whatever you call good. I hate it. I hate the sight of it.
So the same object, in the same situation apparently, when all the factors are the same except the attitude of one single person, of two different persons, makes the same thing as heaven and the same thing as hell. So when you begin to understand the spiritual terminology, then these things are no longer any problem for you. No, what I was thinking was, what I thought maybe, because I knew that it couldn’t be wrong, the Quran couldn’t be wrong, I thought maybe it was going to say just initially after they had gone, their soul had gone, that they would remain sightless, but later, because everyone is reformed, it would change.
The fact is that after death they would go through a very long period of qabr, as it’s called, the interim period in which the souls would develop. And those who are already diseased in embryonic stage, in that period, their hellish features would further develop and come to resolution, so that ultimately they’re prepared to face the consequences of their wrong acts here in the world. The same would apply to the righteous people. Their faculties with which they would die are still not enough. They have to go through a long period of development. And that development, they would be provided during this long period, between death and the day of resurrection, as it is called.
So the holy prophet of Islam tells us that the righteous will not have to wait till the day of resurrection for the heaven, a taste of heaven will be given to them. A window would be opened towards heaven from which the heavenly breeze would reach us, then they would enjoy it so much. And so also the hellish people will not have to wait that long for the hell, because right from the start a window from the hell would be opened towards them and they will have that hot wind blowing from the hell as it is described.
All these are symbolic languages. They carry messages. And the message here is this, that right from the start, because they would have died hellish, their souls will begin to feel uneasiness. And the holy Quran draws our attention to what is happening to a child in the uterus of his mother, if we want to understand the phenomena of rebirth. This is exactly what the holy Quran tells us, that if you want to understand how you will be raised, you will be raised, the holy Quran tells us, like nafse wahida, like the coming to life of a single person. And then he draws our attention to what happens within the uterus.
So what happens within the uterus is this, that if the child in the embryonic stage is diseased, he is restless, he is not happy and contented. Although he does not have that measure of consciousness, as when the child acquires after the birth, after the delivery, yet the doctors know and they tell us, and the mother’s experience, that a diseased child’s behavior within the uterus is different from the healthy child’s behavior. And that behavior also tells upon the mother’s mood. So the same thing or things of similar nature would happen to the souls of the righteous as well as to the souls of the unrighteous people.
So to conceive of a revival as you have conceived earlier is not according to the dictates of the holy Quran. No, I thought they’d pass through a stage initially and then final stage they would return towards Allah. That is of course. So if they are developing blindness, by the time they are raised they will be totally blind. If they are gaining sight, by the time they reach that end, they would have gained the sight clear and beautiful. Thank you.
