For different people, there are different types of Jannas. And each man will be given a Janna according to his own liking. And only that thing can be called Janna which is in complete accord with one’s tastes. Or if there is not complete accord, in as much as there is no accord, that part of that Janna will become a Jahannam. Because the philosophy of Jannat and Jahannam breaks down to this. If you live in harmony with your ideals, and the environment is in complete accordance with your ideals and your requirements, that is your Janna.
Whatever you miss is your Jahannam. So if you don’t miss anything, then you are in Janna. And this is why the Holy Quran tells us, Walakum feeha ma tashtahee anfusukum, walakum feeha ma taddaoon. That the definition of Janna is this, that in Janna, in Paradise, there will be what you desire, and what you follow, what you pursue as goals. That you will find in your Janna. Now as the tastes differ, and the stages of evolution differ, as the requirements differ from man to man, and their religious practices and conduct differ, also should their Jannas differ to that degree. If they don’t differ to suit the purpose of one individual person, then that would not be a Janna for him.
Because the Holy Quran says, Walakum feeha ma tashtahee anfusukum. Each man is promised something according to what he desires. So there are so many desires. But they can be largely classified. And in one big Janna, which is under one classification, there could be various departments and various grooves and shades, made to measure, you know, according to the individual requirements. So this is why various names are given to Janna for people of various classes and types. There are some, in Janna it would be purely the closeness of Allah. So for them, a different type of Janna is promised in the Holy Quran. Fathuli fee ibaadi, wathuli jannat. I declare you to be my slaves. So enter those who are called my slaves. I mean that region in which my slaves come. And that is the highest type of Janna. So because, under Ma ta daun, it is Allah, which they require most.
This is why at the deathbed, Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa s.a.w. was saying, uttering these words, Fir rafiqil ala, fir rafiqil ala. He never said, I am going to Janna or, you know, to Firdaus or any other paradise. He said, I am going into my Lord. He didn’t say, ila rafiqil ala either. It was fir rafiqil ala. That was the concept of his Janna. So all these Jannas, which you find mentioned in the Holy Quran, are according to various stages of human development in Islam. And maybe for Salihin there is a sort of Janna, and for Shuhada another sort and so on and so forth. Yet, strangely enough, they will be together and separated in their treatment at the same time. No compartments will be found, putting them separate. Because, that is a very limited view of the life to come.
It has a different dimension altogether, different values. People can be together and yet so far removed from each other that they would not know what the other is feeling. Like in one space, the waves are coexisting. The television waves are coexisting with each other and with radio waves and with heat waves. And they are not interfering with each other and they don’t know each other’s world. Yet the space allotted to them is the same. Under this cupped hand of mine, if you put a radio antenna or television antenna, you can catch things happening within, which otherwise you simply cannot believe. Under the cupped space, you find Russian spoken and dramas being played and sports programs and every sort of thing, in picture form as well as in sound form. And yet this is a small space, just exert an antenna long enough to be finished within this, to accommodate within. Still it can catch if the set is sensitive.
That shows, within this everything is there. So, when you are beginning to understand things of this nature, you can now project yourself into a future which is even finer in concept than the human imagination can ever reach.
