If I were to tell you
my inspiration for this article, you might be a bit surprised. The other day at
my office, the people started up a random discussion, which basically went
along the lines of, "If you knew that you're going to die in a few hours
and that you're going to hell for certain, would you kill everyone you
hate?"
Most people said yes.
Some people asked how much time they exactly had, as so to decide whether they
could kill slowly and painfully or not. Some started wondering what would
happen if they met the very person(s) they killed in hell later. But you get
the general response.
I had my diplomatic
answer of "I'd rather use the time to tell my loved ones that I love
them" ready, but as it turns out, nobody really cares about interns.
Anyway, this question
led my mind to wander along a trail weaved with reminiscence and deep thought.
I remembered certain occasions where some particular friends had proclaimed
things like, “Yaar hum to pakkay dozakhi hain”, and, “We're already
going to hell anyway, so might as well”. If they are so sure of their
state-of-affairs in the afterlife, will they start killing everyone they hate a
few hours from their death?
Somehow, I think that
even if they had some way of extracting knowledge about the time of their
deaths, some certain people I could name but won't would still be safe.
The obvious question
at this point is, how come? If a person truly believes that he will go
to hell regardless of whatever he does, I'm sure he would cease to care about a
lot of things. But while you may come across many people who have a firm
belief that hell is indeed the only place for them in the afterlife, they still
abstain from utter indifference. The reason being, they don't really
believe that will end up in hell. And why? Because,
He is the Most
Merciful, and the Most Beneficent.
I personally believe
that such apparently hopeless people; or any of us, for that matter; don't
truly believe that they will end up in hell, despite of all the
sins they may have committed and may continue to do so. It is a fact we
just cannot come to terms with, because there is still that small smidgen of
hope, based on the infinite mercy of Allah, that we shall be forgiven on the
Day of Judgment; that things will somehow work out, and that we can escape the
unimaginable horror that awaits the non-believers. Allah is the All Powerful
and the All Merciful; in Him we trust.
However, there could
be a negative aspect to this too. If this really is the reason and this
unrealized-to-most belief really does exist, some people might take this a tad
too far, and continue to commit all sorts of wrongs and sins regardless, and
simply shrug it off saying, 'Allah maaf karnay wala hai yaar'. I
have seen this happen many times and while it's good to have this firm a belief
in His mercy, you surely aren't earning yourself any favors by continuing to
commit these wrongdoings, whatever they may be. Allah may be prepared to
overlook these acts, but why not try giving Him a reason to do so? And what
better time for a change of habit(s) than the holy month of Ramazan?
Of course, this all may be baloney and may not make a lot of sense, if any at all since it is currently 5 in the morning and I wrote this simply because I felt like writing and nothing else came to mind, but as long as it may serve a good purpose, what's the harm?
