“Lord! Send me back so that I may act righteously in that (world) which I have left behind. Never! It is simply a word he utters” (Al-Mu’minun 23:99)
This phrase of regret and mourning will be uttered by the denier of truth after seeing the world after death. But it will be rejected as merely an uttered “word”. More or less the same dialogue will take place on the Day of Judgement when the criminals will appear before Allah and ask to be returned to this world so that they do good deeds, (As-Sajdah 12:32), but this request or “word” of theirs will be rejected.
After reading such verses, a believer gets anxious. He wonders, what if on the Day of Judgment, his words of “There is no deity but God; Muhammad is the messenger of God” (لا الہ الا اللہ محمد رسول الل) are rejected the same way. What if his end is the same as that of the hypocrites after bearing witness to faith (کلمہ شہادت):
“When these hypocrites come to you, they say: We bear witness that you are indeed the Messenger of Allah. . . And Allah knows that you are indeed His Messenger. . . And Allah bears witness that these hypocrites are utter liars”
The believer trembles at the thought that on the Day of judgment it will be said to him that your faith was rooted in your affiliations. You lived for your people and you died for them. Your faith was the faith of a sect. You lived for it and you died for it. Your faith was the faith of interests. You lived for your interests and died for them. Your faith was the faith of prejudices. You lived for your prejudices and died for them. All your life you saw the truth through the lens of your people, your sect, your interest and your bias.
My word came to you, yet you viewed it through your own lens. My beloved Prophet lived among you, but you saw him through your own lens as well. My servants kept coming to you, forewarning you, inviting you towards faith and morals, and encouraging you to pursue righteous deeds. But you remained blind to the obvious truths. Whatever contradicted your desires, you discarded. Whatever clashed with your preconceived notions, you blindly objected to. You would visit four different shops to purchase worldly goods, yet you deemed heaven so cheap that you refused to consider anything beyond where you were born and first settled. Was this your faith?
Your morals were such that you kept telling and spreading lies. You kept protecting brutality by shielding the criminals with ifs and buts. You cooked pots of hatred on the furnace of accusations and slander. You turned against My best servants. You killed so many and you forced countless others to leave the country. You falsely discredited numerous individuals and defamed many more through deceitful campaigns.
You used to talk about decency, but in your personal life you were guilty of every indecency. You used to talk about heaven, but you had accumulated heaps of wealth for this world. You imposed Islam on others, but your own soul was deprived of the spirit of faith. In the presence of others, you wept and caused them to weep. Yet, in solitude, your eyes remained dry, and your words were laced with abuse. You often spoke of ancestors in your speeches, yet failed to grasp even a fraction of their patience and tolerance. Today your faith is rejected. Today your testimony of faith is rejected. How strange will be the time when the faith of many great “believers” will be rejected.
Translated by Ali Zafar