Islam Is For All Mankind
Anybody Who Believes
In One God, The Last Day,
And Works Righteous,
Can Win Paradise!
(M. Javed Naseem)
Paradise is not the monopoly of one ethnic group or the other. Anybody who is Muslim, will enter Paradise with the grace and mercy of God Almighty. And who is a Muslim? Anybody who believes in One God (with no partners); believes in the Judgment Day or the Resurrection Day; and lives a righteous life (surrendering or submitting to the Will of God) is a real Muslim. He/she qualifies for Paradise. Simple as that!
Allah, the Most Merciful, has declared in the Quran clearly and without any ambiguity or confusion that all those people (no matter what ethnic or religious group they belong to, or whatever they are called), who believe in One God (with no partners); who believe in the Day of Judgment and who perform righteous deeds, will be rewarded by the Almighty. They will have no fear and no worries or grief on the Day of Judgment. They will be rewarded by Allah for their good performance in this world. And what is the best reward on the Day of Judgment than the Garden – the Paradise – that we dream of in this world!
“Those who believe (in the Quran), and those
who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the
Christians and the Sabians, any who believe in
Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness,
shall have their reward with their Lord. On them
shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.”
(al-Quran 2:62)
When man is in trouble, he cries to God and begs His mercy to get out of misery or trouble. But as soon as things get better for him, he forgets his cries, his begging and his promises made to serve Allah. He routinely returns to corruption and evil-doing. He ignores all commands of Allah and all the warnings of reprisal too. Man is so selfish, ignorant, ungrateful and disobedient to his Merciful Creator.
“But
you
turned back thereafter.
Had it not been for the Grace and
Mercy of Allah to you, you had
surely been among the losers.”
(al-Quran 2:64)
Allah tells us that He created man weak and hasty. But man loves to play the 'power' games as if he was the controller of the universe. He behaves unreasonably arrogant, ignorant, careless, even fearless of God's wrath. He follows the Devil with a lot more interest and attention than he follows Allah's commands and teachings of the Prophets/Messengers of God. He adopts transgression and cruelty. He starts bringing death and destruction to others while he knows nothing about his own death or sickness. What an irony!
Allah knows fully well what we do or intend to do. We forget all about compassion or mercy when we pursue our worldly pleasures and gains. We forget all about justice and fairplay; about rules and regulations! We just want to serve our purpose by following our lusts. We don't care about anybody or anything while pursuing our material goals – as if we had no hearts. Allah reminds us about such behavior. He tells us:
“Thenceforth
were your hearts hardened.
They became like a rock and even worse
in hardness. For among rocks there are some
from which rivers gush forth; others there are
which when split asunder send forth water;
and others which sink for fear of Allah. And
Allah is not unmindful of what you do.”
(al-Quran 2:74)
Mercy is a godly virtue. Compassion comes from the Divine. Allah, the Almighty treats us with mercy and compassion. Therefore, it naturally becomes our obligation to treat others with mercy and compassion. Humans claim to be of many different races, colors and cultures; but they all have the similar feelings. They all have similar hearts; and they all need love, mercy and compassion to live peacefully and flourish.
We all need each other; and above all we need Allah in our lives to survive and succeed. Without Allah and His mercy, we'll all end up as losers! It is only Allah's Will (Islam) that can turn losers into winners! God bless!
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