Monday, June 15, 2020

Apostate prophet find spiritual bliss; the best reward of heaven?

In answer to the video "72 Juicy Virgins"

Although Heaven is undoubtly the place where all the desires of the righteous are granted, contrary to the dwellers of hell to whom
34:54"a barrier shall be placed between them and that which they desire",
and the only kind of toil they will experience will be one that gives pleasure 16:31,36:55-7 it is also the place where the righteous' earthly traits of nobility and satisfaction through spirituality will be even more prominent; they firstly humbly acknowledge that the abundant reward is because of Allah's grace, not simply on account of their deeds 35:35. They will love it most to sing hymns of praise to Allah and glorify His name just as they did in this world. They will wish eachother peace 10:10 in a place where there will be no room for vain, idle or mean talk, only peaceful intentions 19:62.

 So upright and spiritually aware the dweller of heaven is, that the Quran pictures a persecuted believer exclaiming, upon his entry in heaven, his wish that his nation could know God's mercy and forgiveness to him, instead of expressing his satisfaction for having ended up "victorious" or simply stating his overwhelming excitement at his own reward. The dwellers of heaven will thus be free from any ill feelings towards anyone, whether their brethren of paradise or the people who made them suffer while on earth. They will be content and appeased in the best way
89:27"O soul that are at rest, Return to your Lord, well pleased with Him, well pleasing Him. So enter among My servants, and enter into My garden".
This state of spiritual purity will make any ill or evil intention useless to them. They will never entertain the idea of desiring something inappropriate towards anyone, anything, or their God. What they will like is what will be pleasing to their appeased souls and this pleasure will always be linked to the pleasure of God.

Just as there are higher places above higher places, in this Garden that is as large as the heavens and earth 3:133,57:21 there will be Gardens beyond Gardens 55:46,62 (two beyond two just like the "two" gardens of Sheba does not mean that there were only two gardens in the whole country, but that the entire land was like a garden and wherever a man stood, he could see a garden on his right and a garden on his left 34:15-7) thus conveying once more the idea of infinity in connection with the concept of paradise, and the fact it is beyond perception
85:11"they shall have gardens beneath which rivers flow".
In contrast, hell is a place of tightness and pressure, of layers of fire above and below its dwellers who in addition are chained together 25:13,39:16,7:41,29:55. Chaining is mentioned in the Quran opposite the tyrannical nations that oppressed and chained the weak 
88:25-6"On that day, none will punish as He punishes, and none will bind with chains as He binds".
Despite its vastness, pictured as asking for more and more to be hurled into it, it keeps its dwellers constricted in a narrow space within it, in the manner of a large wall where there are many points of place for a great deal of nails, but every nail is in pressure.

An interesting linguistic nuance used in the Quran to illustrate the vastness and abundance experienced in Paradise is that at the time of stating the bounties of the people of Heaven, it does not precede the statement with the particle min/of, which denotes a portion of something. But it uses the particle in the next sentence when describing Hell's chastisement 34:4-5. This is in line with God's repeated just and merciful reckoning, inflicting a precise, limited and corresponding punishment while rewarding with boundless mercy.

But in spite of this boundless vastness, a person can buy paradise with finite actions like the often reiterated principle of "selling" this worldly life for God's sake. Once they reach heaven, the righteous will understand how its sustenance for example has similarities with what they knew on earth but is really different 2:25 so when the Quran speaks of certain earthly fruits being in heaven 55:68 it is to give us an idea through something we can relate to, of what lies in store. This reveals, once again, the principle that this universe, all of it, is in fact a "teaser" of the hereafter, giving humans a glimpse of things pleasant or not, which will be experienced in the world to come.

Just as the righteous who sacrificed many aspects of worldly pleasures to live within the limits God has prescribed, and will be correspondingly compensated in the Hereafter, the reverse is the case of those who in this life lived in the greedy pursuit of riches, using and abusing from all material benefits without any higher perspective in mind. As they freely ate and drank the unlawfully acquired or the religiously forbidden food and drinks, they will find themselves eating fire and other harmful, unwholesome food and drinks in the Hereafter 4:10,47:15,18:29,14:16,38:57,55:44,88:5.

The Quran compares them in this worldly life to cattle, enjoying food and drink while in the process devoid of the higher realities in mind. For this reason, the equivalent of these worldly foods, drinks, and means of comfort will be found but with a mirror opposite effect 56:41-72,77:29-32. The believers on the other hand enjoyed each pleasure of this life, including one of the most prominent being food and drink, in God-consciousness, which includes in consideration of the needy and within the limits set by God, as well as gratefulness. They are thus awarded that human delight with the best food and drink in abundance and unrestrictedly 
47:12-15"Indeed, Allah will admit those who have believed and done righteous deeds to gardens beneath which rivers flow, but those who disbelieve enjoy themselves and eat as grazing livestock eat, and the Fire will be a residence for them. Is the description of Paradise, which the righteous are promised, wherein are rivers of water unaltered, rivers of milk the taste of which never changes, rivers of wine delicious to those who drink, and rivers of purified honey, in which they will have from all [kinds of] fruits and forgiveness from their Lord, like [that of] those who abide eternally in the Fire and are given to drink scalding water that will sever their intestines?".
As they misused their garments, which are otherwise supposed to provide spiritual and physical protection, to corrupt the minds, or as symbols of their tyrannical authority, they will find themselves covered with clothing of liquid pitch 14:50. Similarly, those that unlawfully and ungratefully took advantage of the abundance of sustenance and security will find themselves confronted to hunger and fear to such an extent that it would be as if these 2 conditions are covering them like garments 16:112.

Those that only considered worldly pursuits in heedlessness of the Hereafter, neglecting their spiritual relationship with God, will find themselves despised and rejected, distanced from God's mercy 17:18,23:66,83:15,20:126,11:99.

Those that prevented people from hearkening God's words and distorted divine truths will not hear God's pleasant words in the next world 2:174. There are many other descriptions the Quran gives of how the wordly response that humans give to God's bounties, which are nothing but testing devices, manifest in the world to come.

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