Promises of the Hereafter

I think this is a very scary thing to think about, is that for some weird reason many of us are living in the future instead of making the most out of the present. When it comes to the future, there are two kinds of futures that an individual can worry about. The near future, the far worldly future, and the hereafter.

But what most of us don’t realize is that the future is a non existent entity. No one really has knowledge about what will happen tomorrow except for Allah swt. We worry about something that does not even exist. All we really have is the past and the present. However, we are more certain about our past and our present. Our past immaturity and experiences teach us various lessons. It is a way for us to learn from it but the future is non existent while the present is all we really have to work with. We are on a time machine, crossing zones that fade away our material existence each time and yet we are consumed with the concept of the future.  We are certain of a reality that time is in fact wasting each and every one of us. In this reflection, i will be defining the hereafter and the various promises of the hereafter.  

      In the world in which we live, almost every educational path, every career, every person seems to be giving us promises about a future. Yet how many of those promises are real, and how many of those promises are false. Majority of the people we know show up to us with a face of confidence and certainty. Employers in marketing will teach you about how to be persuasive. Professors will also often tell you about how to prove your arguments and everything seems to be geared towards ‘winning’. The question becomes, winning what? Sometimes it is winning an argument, or proving a point, or selling a product yet all these wins are deprieved of an essential quality – which is reason. Reason is something that is open to debate, discussion, and opposition as well as challenge. If it is questioned, it is able to sufficiently provide answers. Winning therefore is not always the goal of reason. Honesty and integrity are the goals of reason. In this section of my reflection, i will be discussing the various flaws of the many promises that have been made to us through a variety of examples.

How Marketing Works

         I worked for a marketing company once, as a customer loyalty assistant. The term customer loyalty somehow meant that we are loyal and  honest to our customers but that is not the case at all. By working here, and later quitting due to demotivation as I realized this may not be good for my hereafter in the book of deeds, I realized the many secrets of the corporate world when they sell products, ideas and so on. The point is, it is presented as ‘flawless’. Almost omnipotent you could say. It was a health and safety service, but the truth was, when the situation actually arose, there really was neither health, nor safety. It was simply taking advantage of people’s ongoing fear. While it wasn’t 100% flawless, it wasn’t 100% a deception either because there was an effort to provide relief to the injured. It was just full of various faults. I even managed to change the line I was given to reassure customers by adding lines including. “God willingly, we will try our very best to provide aid through the following means’. I ended up selling the product to the higest number of customers having an enormous commission rate of almost 900$/month ontop of my minimum salary until they told me to not have religious association in my line (  a little while before I actually left the job). But through working here I realized that whatever item, idea or product we are being sold is always sold to us with 100% confidence. I also realized that just because something is given to us with 100% confidence doesn’t mean that we can place our 100% reliance on it. There is really no certainty about our futures. Everything is always as God wills it to be, and God willingly only can anything truly occur.

The Creation of Statistics for Confidence Purposes

I suppose this is what makes a statistical analysis of everything so useful during today’s time and age because we can say with sound knowledge based on the past that we are 99% confident that such a such thing will happen based on our understanding in the past collection of various random samples. So next time someone sells you a product that you have a right to ‘not immedietly believe them’. And question them, like ‘how sure are you’? What important information do you have from the past to suggest what you are saying is in fact the truth?

Secondly I may as well also add that not all statistics are the truth. Some statistics are simply made up while others can have research biases. I look forward to a day in which a statistical corporation is designed to ensure validity for all the various ‘confident claims’ that companies are making to deceive and exploit their customers and will make this one of my future developmental goals.

                Finally, regardless of our confidence intervals of the past, does not guarantee our future and we are simply given the opportunity to say that ‘God willingly’ with the realization that the future is not in our hands entirely. It may be that we overlook one/two small factors  or circumstances occur that are beyond our control. However, when we have done our best and used all the various means at our disposal the best thing to do is rest assured that the final decision regardless of our efforts is ultimately in the hands of our creator.

Shortcomings in Human Knowledge

                Regardless of all our progressions in the past, human beings are still ultimately ignorant. To illustrate my point here, take the example of depression and felicity. During the past decade we have been using medicines to cure depression while ignoring the larger social political structures that create depression in the first place. It’s like assuming that a kid goes to school and gets bullied every single day and as a result, he becomes depressed. So, he attempts suicide but his parents take him to the doctor who prescribes medication. As a result, his stress response becomes numb and the fight flight response also becomes numb because of medical intervention in controlling his hormones associated with stress. Now he goes to school and he gets bullied but doesn’t show the stress response a normal stimuli in that situation would do as a survival instinct. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? While in the short run it might be a good thing but in the long run, it is just making things worse. What really needed confrontation was social and psychological factors including fighting to eradicate bullying, better disciplining by teachers, and protecting people’s rights. How would that have been achieved? It would have required moral intervention including ‘not hurting others’, ‘loving one another’, ‘not taking o ut your frustration on others’, it would look at ‘why is he bullying?’ it would target areas including dealing with arrogance, greed etc and praying to have better souls and cooperation in the community. That is a spiritual intervention. Including cooperative group work, prayer, meditation and so on yet as a code of life, the divine knowledge which has so much to offer.

        Similarly when we analyze the case of AIDS (a topic my mom specifically told me not to discuss because girls shouldn’t be discussing these topics that I feel that the AIDS pandemic happening in the world is a huge issue for our generation), a geographical analysis shows that the AIDS pandemic simply does not seem to have affected muslim populations in Africa, while south Africa is massively affected by it. In discussing this issue, the professor was unable to outline the underlying causative factor behind it but it may include the limitation of direct physical contact with the opposite sex within the institution of marriage, charity in the community as a preventative factor for those living in poverty resulting in intervention against people having to be in circumstances where they have no choice but to sell their bodies for survival, as well as hygienic practices including wudu five times a day, washing hands before meals, covering the face, limiting forms of direct contact and so on. While various intervention practices including vaccinations, social institutions have been placed they are not as accomplishing as simple everyday practices when following divine guidance.

     The above examples therefore illustrate the human limitations in knowledge and intervention. Ultimately, regardless of the picture painted of success through social institutions, doctors and health professionals, the ultimate promise of success in this life as well as the hereafter is in the hands of God. This understanding allows us to take a deeper look into another issue of concern. Does our education guarantee our career?

    The answer again is – not really. Our university is filled with professors having done PhDs yet they are living under minimum wage. Similarly various graduates have absolutely no jobs. All of this shows us that our future is not in the hands of anyone but God. Regardless of the promises that people make, they do not guarantee a future for us regardless. Similarly, various intelligent students I have known personally ended up getting their jobs not through their university degrees but through their college degrees or directly through contacts. While others may obtain their jobs through no educational background whatsoever. What it should  be noted is nothing about the future is really promised and we cannot simply rely on human being to tell us what is or isn’t success. What we study years for doesn’t mean that will necessarily be what we spend years doing. As scary as that sounds that is the reality of how unpredictable our world is. All of this is proof enough to show us that the promises of the hereafter are only with Allah swt. When this becomes our concluding remarks, it is enough to change the way of how we choose to live our lives. What is God’s promise of the hereafter?

God’s Promises About the Hereafter and Promises of Success

     So far we have covered how unpredictable the future can be. Now let’s discuss what God’s promises of success regarding our future (hereafter)  are. The Qur’an’s very outlook on everything is a little bit different than the worldly outlook on things. For starters’. The Qur’an refers to the life being a test, as well the defining factors of success quite different from what we define it to be. In deciphering the true essence of success, this section will look at life being a place of test and trial. Secondly we will look at the meaning of success as defined in surah muminoon, and than we will go onto our next discussion topic regarding time in surah Asr. The focus of this topic is mainly still geared to defining the ‘hereafter’ which is always where our outlook of life tends to be since we are always working towards promises of the future.

    ‘He who created death and life to test you as to which of you are best in deed, and He is Almighty (Al-Aziz) and Most Forgiving (Al-Ghafur) ’. (passage from surah mulk). This single ayah shows us something remarkable. It tells us the purpose of our life as well as creation. Similarly in other ahadith and places in the Qur’an Allah swt also talks to human beings about ‘do you think you will be left alone to say we believe and will not be tested?’.  These ayahs and hadith change our outlook on life. They teach us that life is not really the material way that we perceive it but everything has a deeper and inner meaning. Other traditions often tend to differentiate these realities into two realms, the perceived reality and the ‘true reality’. Nouman Ali Khan also nicely states this reality discussing ‘the way a mumin’ sees a tree and the way that a person who studies agriculture sees a tree is still different because everything has a deeper inner meaning. To explain that, picture someone who is consumed in usury or exploits labour. On the surface this person may look like they are temporarily blessed with various material gains and status and if we only look at the outer appearance we may actually be deluded by this person, but there God sees this from a very different perspective in which there is a spiritual essence to this person. This person is wrongfully devouring the property and exploiting the rights of other people. ON the material surface this may even be something beautiful but the inner nature is what God sees. Sometimes the inner nature of a person is also written on the features of their face but, not always. Similarly if we read the story of Ayub (a.s. ) there is a very different inner nature and apparent nature. In great testing times and poverty he may appear to be poor, ill, deprieved and even cursed but on the inner self there is virtues of great patience, exemplary sabr for generations and generations to come.

   These example paint a very different picture of ‘success’ than the picture we are used to. Yet a part of us as human beings often tend to prefer people with a better inner nature rather than the superficial standards society wants us to love outwardly. For example when looking for a spouse, a life partner, people prefer someone of high moral character. Various men and women were interviewed and women always thought men only wanted ‘sex’ and men always thought women wanted someone with good careers and money mainly, but the reality was quite different. Everyone wanted a morally upright person. So it didn’t matter if he was wealthy but cruel, drunk, mistreated people it mattered that he was kind, calm minded, treated others well and money was an asset after the moral character. Similarly what joins hearts also tends to be a beautiful moral character. The success God’ paints for us is the success of the inner nature and inner being. The success of the soul and not the material being.

    This success is not dependent on one’s social status, educational level, career position, or any other characterisitic. This success is dependent on one’s piety. Surah shams refers to this as ‘By the soul and the proportion and order given to it. And its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right. Truly he succeeds that purifies it and he fails that corrupts it.’ (91; 7-10). Surah Muminoon also defines success in its first frew ayahs. “The believers must win through, those who humble themselves in prayer, those who avoid vain talk, who are active in deeds of charity, who abstain from sex, except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or the captives whom their right hands possess, for in their case they are free from blame. But those whose desires exceed those limits are transgressors. Those who faithfully observe their trusts and covenents, and who strictly guard their prayers those will be thei heirs, who will inherit Al-Firduous’. (Qur’an 23; 1-13). Finally, surah Asr discusses this concept as well by stating. “By the token of time, verily mankind is in loss except those who have believed, done righteous, enjoined righteousness and teachings of truth and have patience’.

       This concludes our discussion on the hereafter and defining what it is. When our outlook on life is the betterment of our soul and working towards the hereafter, our outlook on life is changed. Most of the things that happen in our lifetime can be looked upon as blessings including times of blessings as well as times of trial and loss. Our life becomes a constant struggle of simply ‘doing what is right’. In times of blessings we avoid being extravagant, wasteful and so on. And in times of test and trial we avoid being angry, offensive, overly defensive and so on by maintaining a calm equilibrium. Similarly by focusing our attention on doing what is right saves us from falling into various deceptive ways including being overly concerned with who is right instead of what is right and so on. It becomes a constant struggle of purifying our souls to present a better person to God and letting him be our judge of character and deeds and accepting the judgement that is passed for us.