What is the Purpose of Our Existence

What is the Purpose of Our Existence?

Introduction: The Universal Question

It must be many times and on many occasions in our life that we have pondered over this question and we have thought about this question. Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? What is it all for? What is the reason for it? And in some way or another way, we find many different religions, many different philosophies have tried to provide answers to these fundamental questions.

The Dominant Ideology of Modern Society

We live in a society, the western society, that in reality is first and foremost and essentially an atheistic or if not atheistic, certainly secularist society, that it advocates and propagates the ideology of materialism and this materialistic ideology is backed by scientific theories and in particular the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution tells us that we have our origin in and from a common ancestor with the apes and this primate itself has evolved from other creatures which in the far, far distant past, everything had evolved from this organic soup and this is what they use to back their materialistic philosophy, that man according to them, that the human being according to this ideology is in fact no more than an animal, an advanced animal but nonetheless an animal and everything else is explained in the context of that. Similarly, according to them, the universe itself is a product of some random events.

The Atheistic Worldview and Its Implications

So my brothers and my sisters, what is being taught to us at the moment in reality is this idea that in reality there is no God, there is no need for a God, there is no day of judgment, there is no hellfire, there is no paradise, that we in fact in reality are mere, our whole existence is a coincidence and in reality the life has no real purpose and no real meaning except the purpose and the meaning that you happen to want to give it, that you eat, you drink, you sleep, you seek shelter, you live, you die, that's it.

The Rise of Atheism as a World Belief System

So this is one philosophy, one ideology and atheism perhaps for the first time in human history, atheism for perhaps the first time in human history has actually become what we could describe as a world belief system because in the past we found that to some degree or another degree people have always believed in the existence of a creator or a creating being and that pure atheism was something very rare and this is what we need to talk about today. What we have to develop upon today and discuss today and bring up today is basically two concepts, the atheistic ideology and the other idea is the concept or the understanding that there is a God, there is a creator, that the universe, that life does have a special purpose.

Diversity Among Believers in God

Yet within the belief systems that believe in the existence of God there is also a great difference and we hope that we will be able to examine some of these differences and draw some conclusions from all of this. So first of all what I would like to examine is the arguments against and the arguments for the belief in the creator, why? Because this is going to be fundamental to explaining the reason and the purpose of our existence.

The Emotional Arguments of Atheism

Strangely enough, although the atheist claims to take the ground of rationality, of science, of a position where there is a lack of prejudice whereas the believer is supposed to have prejudice. We find in fact that quite often the arguments of the atheist are emotional arguments. Their reasons for saying that there is not a God are emotional reasons, not rational reasons. You often find that they bring the argument like for example, well, if there is a God, why there is so much suffering in the world? This is one of their arguments. If there is a God, how come you have AIDS and natural disasters and these diseases and how come some people are crippled and some people are born blind? It doesn't seem to be such a perfect world to me, rather it seems to be a product of chaos and confusion. This is what they claim. However, we will see the futility of these claims and we will examine why these claims are in fact emotional arguments, not rational ones.

The Rational Proof for the Existence of God

And what we intend to do first and foremost is prove to you that there must be a God, there must be a creator. In fact that the only possible rational position that can be taken by a human being is that this universe and this world must have a creator. And this creator must be one God, there cannot be more than one such creator. And we know this basically through two different ways. One way is the instinctive way and the second is the means that we use through reason or intelligence or what we can call aql in Arabic. And let us examine the arguments based upon the intelligence.

The Quranic Logical Argument

And it's a very simple argument. The argument is propounded in the Quran. And it goes like this. Was the universe and everything in it, was it, did it come from nothing? Did it come from nothing? This is the first question the Quran asks. Did it come from nothing? Now let's examine it. Do we ever experience something coming from nothing? In fact in reality in the totality of human experience it will be very hard to find anyone being able to support this idea that something comes from nothing. Let alone a universe which is working and regulated according to such perfect laws and such perfect systems. So this is not an alternative.

The second possibility is, did it create itself? Did it create itself? Can something create itself? Could it have brought itself into existence? If it didn't exist beforehand, how could it have brought itself into existence? Or are you the creators of it? How can something within the creation be the creator of it? Since that thing itself is part

of the creation, it itself needs a creator. Human beings themselves need a creator. So what are the options? What is left for the rational mind?

Responding to the "Show Me God" Argument

Some of the arguments that people bring up, well ok, but you know, where is this God? Show me. I can't see God. I can't see God. Why should I believe in something I can't see? But it's amazing of course that these same people believe in a whole range of things which they can't see. They can't see the air, they believe in it. They can't see atoms and neutrons and electrons, yet they believe in them. They can't see their minds, yet they believe in it.

The Archaeological Evidence Analogy

In fact, there is a whole department of science, of historical science called archaeology. And what an archaeologist does, is an archaeologist would go, perhaps to the middle of a desert, where there are no trees and there is no water. And this archaeologist will dig in the sand. And then this archaeologist will come across a piece of pottery. And from this single piece of pottery, this archaeologist will be able to tell you the state of knowledge, the technological ability of the people who produced this piece of pottery. He will be able to tell you that they must have been able to build ovens and they must have had such and such amount of access to wood and fuel or charcoal because in order to heat the ovens up at such and such temperature to produce and to be able to bake the clay at such and such temperature, they must have had this level of knowledge and technology. And he will look at the dyes and the writing. And he will be able to tell you so many things about the civilization and the people that produced that piece of pottery without even seeing one of those people. He didn't see them make it. He didn't see them build it. He didn't see them working in their pottery factories. But to him, the existence of this piece of pottery is absolute conclusive proof of the existence of the people who made it and also of the level of their technological ability and skill.

The Universe as Proof of the Creator

In the same way, anybody who observes the laws, the systemizing of the universe and the world in which we live, does not have to see the Creator to know there must be a Creator. The fact that we find the universe and our world and ourselves working according to such perfect laws is the proof of the existence of the One who made those laws. Because all of the creation, the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the planets, ourselves, the animals, all of them have been of a Creator. We all have a need and that need is that we need something to have organized all of this. Since it is not possible, it is not possible and it is far removed from all the realms of probability that such order could have been a product of chance and coincidence.

The Mathematical Impossibility of Evolution

It is not a possibility. It is not a mathematical possibility. Evolution is mathematically impossible. A Swiss mathematician called Charles Eugene Guy, he calculated the probability of one single protein molecule as

having come into existence through chance. And the probability was 10 to the power of 265. And the amount of matter that was needed would have been millions of times bigger than the known universe and the amount of time that it would have taken would have been 10 to the power of 160 times the length of the existence of the entire universe as we know it. And basically statisticians, people who deal with statistics, they have said that anything that is 1 to the power of 100, 1 to 100, that is so improbable they consider it impossible. So how about 10 to the power of 265? That is 10 with 265 zeros after it.

The Complexity of Human Creation

One protein molecule. How about a child that has, what, 16 million or is it 16 billion protein molecules, every single one of them organized to produce lungs and eyes and ears and a brain and a heart and kidneys and all the other parts and all the organs, all of them functioning together in perfection? It is not possible that this could have been a product of chance and coincidence.

The Perfect Balance of the Universe

And if we look at the universe and the world around us again, we will find that to say that this is a product of chance and coincidence is just unbelievable. There are so many things, so many of the laws of physics that if they were slightly different, if they were slightly bit different, life could not exist. For example, take the planet upon which we are on, the planet earth. If the planet earth was closer to the sun, if it was much closer to the sun, or even slightly closer to the sun, it would be too hot for life to exist. If it was too far, it would be too cold for life to exist.

The earth just happens to be going around the sun at the right speed, which I can't remember what it is, but it happens to be going around the sun at the right speed. If it was any faster, if the earth was going around any faster, it would fly off into space. If it was going any slower, it would be sucked in and burnt up by the sun. The earth rotates on its axis once every 24 hours. Imagine if the earth rotated on its axis once every 5 months. One surface of the earth would become superheated and the other surface would become supercooled and life would not be able to exist.

The Perfect Atmosphere for Life

We have a gas in our atmosphere, the ozone layer, which happens to be able to filter out all the harmful effects of the sun's radiation. If that gas was not there, everything would be destroyed on this planet. The composition of the gases of our atmosphere just happened to be of the right quantity of nitrogen and oxygen and carbon dioxide. If it was pure oxygen, life depends on oxygen, but if it was pure oxygen, pure oxygen is poisonous to life. It must be mixed with nitrogen. There also has to be carbon dioxide because plants need to breathe in carbon dioxide in order to exist. If these gases were not there, life would not exist. So is it possible that these things are a product of some mere random event?

The Story of the Scholar and the Atheists

There was one great scholar of Islam. He was once invited to a debate by some atheists and he accepted, but he said to them, look, I will debate you, but not right now. I will debate you after the sun has set on the far side of such and such river. They waited one hour, they waited two hours, and eventually this Muslim scholar, he arrived. So they started saying to him, what sort of thing is this? You're supposed to be a Muslim, you're supposed to be on time. What sort of behavior is this?

So the scholar said, look, I didn't intend to be here late, but what happened was when I came to the river, I couldn't find any way to cross. I walked up the river and I walked down the river, and I couldn't find any ferry boat to take me across, I couldn't find any bridge. So I sat down and thought, what am I going to do? And then right in front of my eyes, this tree fell down and divided itself up into planks, and nails popped out from the ground, and lo and behold, in front of my eyes, this boat was formed. It put itself in the river. I stood in it and it took me across.

And the atheists said, you don't expect us to believe a stupid story like that. And the scholar said, why not? You want me to believe something even more stupid, that the heavens and the earth and that all the creatures in it are a product of some random event? So thus he defeated them, and humiliated them. And this is the supreme reasonable position, that in reality, reason does not allow the human being to believe anything else.

The Argument from Suffering Revisited

The only thing they will say is, oh, but you have to believe this because we are human beings. We are human beings, so we have to think like that. Yes? Fair enough. Go and be a donkey or a rock if you want to. We are human beings. If you try and convince yourself that it's anything else, you are never able to be happy. You'll never really believe it, because as a human being you can't.

So what are their arguments? Oh, there can't be a God because there's so much war and there's so much suffering. How about the disabled people? How about this? How about that? Now the point is this. The point is this. That doesn't prove that there's not a God. That doesn't prove that there is not a God. All it says is that the idea that you have about God is probably the wrong one.

Addressing the Christian Concept of God

And most of the time when I'm involved with discussions with people on this issue, we find that they think that what I am talking about is Christianity. So they argue with me as they used to argue with a Christian. Because Christianity teaches, and here when I say Christianity teaches, I'm not referring to the individual interpretations of some Christians, which may differ from what I'm saying. But broad based, Christianity teaches, and certainly the Bible says, that God is love. It says God is love. And therefore it becomes a problem. When the Christian is confronted by the question of the atheist, well if God is love, like you claim, how come there is so much disease and how come there is so much suffering and how come there is so much pain? And in this regard, the atheist

The Islamic Understanding of God's Perfection

But I say no. That the creation of Allah is perfect. And Allah, the creator, He is perfect and His creation is perfect. And how do we explain that? How do we as Muslims explain that Allah is perfect and His creation is perfect? We explain that by saying that the creation is not perfect in the sense that Allah is perfect. Allah is perfect in the absolute sense. He is free from all imperfections. He is the all-knowing, the all-wise, the just. The merciful, the loving. And He is also the swift in punishment. And when He punishes, it is perfect. His justice is perfect. His knowledge is perfect.

The creation is not perfect in that sense. No. When we say the creation is perfect, we mean that the creation is perfect at doing what God has created it for. It's perfect at fulfilling its purpose. So therefore we say to the atheist, No, what you have misunderstood is the purpose of life. When you complain about death and suffering and earthquakes and people who are born disabled and blind and these type of things, it doesn't prove there's not a God. All it shows is that you have failed to comprehend the purpose for which God has created the world and the universe. It doesn't deny the reality of a creator's existence. It just shows that you haven't understood the reason for which He created everything.

Life as a Test

So Islam teaches that there is a purpose behind this creation. Reason tells us there must be a creator. I didn't mention the instinctive proof, perhaps we'll mention that later. But how does Islam tell us and what does Islam tell us is the purpose of the creation. The reality is that life is a test. Life is a test. This is the purpose of the creation vis-a-vis the human being. That for the human being, life is a test. Therefore the world is perfect at being a testing ground for the human being. Because within the world is good and evil. Happiness and unhappiness. Beauty and ugliness. Right and wrong. Darkness and light.

How will you test goodness if there is no evil? How will you know goodness if there is no evil? How will you know beauty if there is no ugliness? How will you know right if there is no wrong? How will you know truth if there is no falsehood? So life is a test. And that is why we find within the world and within the universe, we find it the way it is. We find there is death, there is disease, there is poverty, there is wealth. There is illness, there is health. Etc, etc, etc. Because this is the means through which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is testing His slaves.

The Universe as a Book of Signs

And it is also the means through which and by which we can learn the truth and the reality of the Creator's existence. The universe is like a sign, a book of signs. Leading us to the conclusion of the reality of the Creator's existence. And also some other things that we can understand about God through the universe and observing the universe.

The Oneness of God

We know there must be one God. And this is a simple conclusion that we come to. It is simple on two regards. First of all, such organization could not possibly be the product of two creators. If there were two such creators, as the Quran mentions, they would have fought with each other and each one would have gone off with what it created. And you would never have been able to find such a magnificently constructed universe.

The second is that if we examine the reasoning process that we used before and we said that everything in the universe has a need. The need that everything in the universe has is the need for something, someone to organize it and to sustain it and to maintain it. And therefore we can conclude that the one who organized and created and brought into existence the universe cannot be the same as the universe and of the same nature as the universe. If the creator was of the same nature as the creation, then the creator would need a creator. And then that creator would also need a creator. But we are looking for the one who is the originator of all of these things.

The Attributes of the Creator

So that creator must be infinite. That creator must be self-sufficient. That is why it is not possible. And it is not reasonable. And it is an open invitation for any atheist to say that a man is God or God became a man. Because it simply contradicts everything that the universe tells us about God. Everything that our reason tells us about God. Indeed everything in reality that true scripture tells us about God. That God is the infinite. Man is finite. God is the eternal. Man is temporary. God is unseen whereas man is visible.

God is self-sufficient. God does not need to eat or drink or breathe. He doesn't need love. He doesn't need even worship. He is self-sufficient. Whereas the human being, the creatures are dependent. They need food, they need air. The very atoms of their bodies are kept together through the power of the creator. So the creation cannot be the creator. And the creator cannot be the creation. Because he would deny the reality of his existence.

The Falsity of Claiming Divinity for Any Man

So God cannot be a man. And any religion or ideology or philosophy that tells you such and such man is God. Then it must be false. It must be false. So why therefore? And this now we have to talk about. And if you haven't understood already, we are talking primarily, not only, but primarily about Christianity.

Christianity's Unanswered Questions

Because Christianity is a religion now that claims to believe in God. In reality we find that Christianity in reality poses more questions and causes more questions to be asked than answers it provides. And one of the questions that I have found until today, no Christian has been able to give me an answer, is a simple question. Why did God allow a world in which there was sin? Didn't God have the power to create the human beings and put them in paradise forever, if he wanted to? And if God as you claim is love, then why did he allow the world to be full

of suffering? Why? And fundamentally we find a Christian finds it very difficult to answer these questions. Because it conflicts with their ideology and their theology. There's a problem there.

Islam's Beautiful Answer to the Question of Sin

But Islam we find has the most beautiful answer to this. Islam has the most beautiful answer to this. Since Christianity tells us that God, so they say, God is so righteous he cannot look upon the sin of man. God is so righteous he can't look upon the sin of man. So, and now we do, if you actually think about it, this becomes next to perhaps even absurd, that because God could not look upon the sin of man, he needed to come down as a man and die on the cross. Now, how whatsoever sense that is supposed to make, only Allah knows best.

But how are we supposed to seek forgiveness from God? Why is there sin? How come God allowed sin to take place? But Islam gives us the answer. Because the existence of sin allows us to understand something about the reality of God. And this the Prophet Muhammad, he outlined this, when he said, that if you did not sin, and repent from your sins, then Allah would remove you, Allah would remove you, and you would bring another people, who sinned and who repented from their sins.

Learning About God's Mercy Through Repentance

Why? Because God created us. He created us, and he made us with a nature, that it is natural that we would be inclined to do sins. And he put us in a world that it would be unavoidable, that we would incline towards sins. But it is only through sinning, and disobeying God, and then turning to God, and asking his forgiveness, and repenting for our sins, that we learn the reality, that Allah is Al-Ghafoor Al-Raheem, that he is the forgiving, and he is the merciful.

Sins exist, and we sin, that is the reality. But through sinning and repenting for our sins, we learn that Allah, that we have a Lord, we have a creator, who forgives. And we learn and we know that we have a creator, who punishes for our sins, and forgives us when we make repentance to him. And thus we learn about the mercy, and the forgiveness of Allah. This is the reality. So we find that the Quran is teaching us the purpose of life.

The Speaker's Personal Journey to Islam

In fact, before I became a Muslim, about 10 or 11 years ago, I was brought up in a Roman Catholic monastery. My mother was originally from Poland, and she wanted me to be brought up a Catholic. I was brought up in a Roman Catholic monastic school, a boarding school, where we studied the Bible. But for several different reasons, I could not accept what I was being taught then. I could not accept the claim that they said, Mary is the mother of God. Because how could it be that the one who has no beginning and no end, who is the eternal self-sufficient creator, could have been born of a woman. And if Mary was the mother of God, then she must be a greater God than God. And there were many other reasons that I could not accept what I was being taught.

Searching Through Various Religions and Philosophies

And there were other reasons why I could not accept the materialistic values that I was being raised upon in my family. And I will say that I have read, and I had read, about perhaps nearly every single religion. I practiced Buddhism. I studied Hinduism. I read books about philosophy, psychology, and many different books about many different religions. But there is only one book where I found a convincing answer to that question. Why are we here? What is the reason for our existence? What is the purpose of life? I found it in the Quran.

The Quranic Answer: The Purpose of Creation

And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, He says:

"I seek refuge in Allah from Satan the accursed. And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me." (Quran 51:56)

In this book, that has been revealed by Allah, the creator of the heavens and the earth, that was sent down to Muhammad over a period of 23 years, that has been passed down to us through an unbroken chain of oral and written transmission since the time of Rasulullah, this book has told us that Allah, our creator, has informed us the reason for which He put us and gave us existence.

The Certainty That Comes from Divine Revelation

And if we think about it, brothers and sisters, how can we ever, how can we ever possibly reach certainty about this most important of all questions? How can we ever reach certainty about this most important of all questions? Unless the One who created us tells us. Everything else in reality you will understand is guesswork. The philosophers, what they have is guesswork. The materialists, what they have is guesswork. The people who meditate and the mystics have nothing except guesswork. There is no certainty. But there is certainty that we know when the One who gave us existence and brought us into existence tells us that this is the reason for which He created us, then we know. This is the reason for which we exist.

Understanding the Comprehensive Meaning of Worship

So let me translate those words. وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ That Allah is saying that He has not created the jinn and we'll leave them aside for the moment and the ins, the mankind, the human being. The human being. Allah has not created the human being except that we should choose to worship Him.

Now many people might say, is that it? You know, to worship God, is that what is the purpose of life? And that might be an understandable reaction from someone who is brought up in the West with a very narrow concept of worship. To them or to many people in the West we have been given this idea that worship is going to the

church on Sunday, going to the mosque on Friday, you know, going to the synagogue on Saturday, you know, celebrating Christmas or the two Eids or whatever it is and a few rituals and a few, and that is worship.

Ibn Taymiyyah's Definition of Worship

But the term worship or Ibadah in Arabic is something vast. Indeed it is something all comprehensive. And one of the great scholars of Islam, Ibn Taymiyyah, he defined this word Ibadah. He defined this word worship. He said that worship, or this is more or less the meaning of what he said. He said that worship is everything which Allah, the Creator, the God, everything which Allah loves and approves of. Whether it is the beliefs, the thoughts, the sayings or the actions.

So that you can either believe something that God, Allah, the Creator loves and He approves of or you can believe something other than that. If you believe what He loves, if you believe what He approves of, it is worship. If you have in your mind the thoughts that God loves and approves of, it is worship. If you have other than that, it is not worship. If you say the words and bring forth the speech that Allah loves, the Creator loves and approves of, it is worship. If you do the actions that Allah loves and approves of, it is worship. So this is something all comprehensive.

Worship in Every Aspect of Life

And as a Jew once said to one of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, his name was Abu Huraira, your messenger, your prophet, teaches you everything. He even tells you how to go to the loo, how to go to the toilet. And Abu Huraira said yes. He said yes. He teaches us that when we go to the toilet, we don't face and we don't turn our backs towards the Qibla, the direction of prayer. And that when we have finished, we clean ourselves with either three stones or water. Because as Muslims, everything in the life can be either a worship for Allah or something other than that.

Making Life a Complete Act of Worship

So the purpose of life is to make your whole life a worship for Allah. The purpose of existence is to make sure that all your sayings and all your beliefs and all your thoughts and all your actions are sayings and beliefs and thoughts and actions that are pleasing to your Lord and your Creator. And that you should leave those things which are displeasing to Him. This is the purpose of life. This is the battle of life. This is the real jihad.

The True Meaning of Jihad

You hear this word jihad. But really jihad means to struggle with the utmost of your ability. And the Prophet said, The best jihad is the jihad you make against yourself. This is the struggle of life. To make yourself a worshipper of Allah. And to leave and abandon the worship of the false gods.

Abandoning False Objects of Worship

Those things that we put our faith and our hope and our trust in. Those things like money perhaps, fame, fortune, our desires and our passions. Other human beings, even prophets and saints. We put our faith and our trust and our hope in them. Whereas in reality we should direct all our worship to the Creator alone.

How Do We Know How to Worship Allah?

But how do we know? How do we know how to worship Allah? How do we know how to worship this God? Who is most worthy of it and deserving of it? Do we guess? Do we guess? Do we think for ourselves? Do we imagine for ourselves? Well maybe God would like this and maybe God would like that. And maybe He'll do it like this, maybe He'll do it like that. And all praise is due to Allah. He didn't leave us in the state of confusion.

Allah's Provision of Guidance Through Prophets

That God put within our hearts and our souls the drive to be His worshippers. The inclination to be His worshippers. And just like He gave us the inclination, the feeling of hunger, He gave us food to satisfy our hunger. He gave us the feeling of thirst, He gave us drink to quench our thirst. He gave us the feeling of love and affection and He gave us wives and husbands, companions to satisfy their urge for love and companionship. Similarly Allah gave us the drive to be worshippers. To be His worshippers. And He did not leave us without the means to satisfy that desire.

That is why He sent prophets. That is why He sent messengers. That's why He sent Abraham and Noah and Moses and Jacob and Jesus and Muhammad. May God's peace and blessings be upon all His messengers. Whom we believe as Muslims came with the same message, the same religion, the same fundamental message. That we should direct our worship in all aspects of our lives to Allah the Creator alone. And that we should leave the worship of the false gods.

The Role of Prophets in Teaching Worship

And they came to teach us how to worship God. They came to teach us what are the beliefs, what are the things that God wants us to believe about Him. What is it that Allah the Creator wants us to believe? What are the thoughts that He likes us to have? What is the speech that He loves us to say? What are the actions that He loves us to do and that He approves of? He didn't leave it for us to guess.

The Final Messenger Muhammad ﷺ

He sent to us, and in this day and age, the final and last messenger. He sent to us Muhammad ﷺ. To teach us how to worship the Creator of the heavens and the earth. And they also came, all of the prophets. And Allah's final messenger Muhammad came to warn us also, and to remind us also of the ultimate reality.

The Reality of the Day of Judgment

The ultimate reality that this life is a test. But there is a day when we will see the results of this test. There is a day that we will be raised up, naked, barefooted and uncircumcised. We will not have any money. We will not have any possessions. That we will have nothing with us except our deeds. And every single atom's weight of good that we have done, we will know about it. And every single atom's weight of evil that we have done, we will know about it. It is the day of standing. (يَوْمُ الْقِيَامَةِ - Yawm al-Qiyāmah) The day of reckoning. The day of accounting. The day of judgment. A promised day. A day that Allah has promised through all of His messengers.

The Terror of That Day

A day that Allah has described in detail in His book. A day that will turn, my brothers and sisters, it will turn the hair of children grey. That a woman who is feeding her child will abandon her child. A woman who is pregnant will miscarriage from the fear and the terror of that day. When mankind will run as if they are in a drunken riot, from the fear and the terror of that day. When the sun will be brought close to our heads, and people will be up to some of them in their ankles, some to their knees, some to their waist, some to there, and some bridled in sweat, from the fear of that day. When mankind will be assembled in groups, and they will be brought, and all of us, you and me, will be brought forth for judgment.

The Reality of Hellfire

And there is the hellfire. The hellfire that is a real physical place that has already been created, and it already exists. Allah sent with his messenger Muhammad ﷺ, both in the Quran and in the prophetic sayings, descriptions of this place. That how its inhabitants, their skins will be burnt and recreated and reburnt. How they will call for water, and they will get water like molten copper that will scald their faces and burn out their insides.

The Tree of Zaqqum

That there is a tree in this hellfire, which is the tree of Zaqqum. With the fruits which are like heads of devils, that is so bitter that when you try to eat it, you will hardly be able to swallow it. But you will force, and the people in there will force themselves, force themselves, because of their hunger. But the bitterness will make them more thirsty, so they will cry again, and they will get the drink, boiling water, burning their faces and scalding their insides.

The Eternal Nature of Hellfire

And how long will this go on for? A week? A month? A year? A decade? A century? A millennium? No. For those who have rejected faith, for those who have rejected the worship of their lord and their creator, it will never, it will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever end. Never. This is the reality about which Allah has warned us. This is the end result of the test of life.

The Description of Paradise

And then there is paradise. There is a place where there is no suffering, no age, no argument, no futility, no disease, where there is peace and happiness and tranquility. Where there are gardens with rivers of honey and milk and wine. Where the soil is of musk and the pebbles are of precious stones. Where its inhabitants will be served by youths like scattered pearls, reclining on silken cushions dressed in silk with golden brocade. Drinking from the fountains of paradise. Greeted by the angels. Meeting the prophets and the martyrs and the righteous.

The Supreme Joy of Paradise

And of all the supreme joys and blessings of paradise, the greatest and the most supreme joy is to be able to look upon the face of our Lord Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And of all the sufferings and the torments of hell, the worst will be the knowledge of its inhabitants that they have been deprived of looking upon the face of their Lord Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Divine Justice and Mercy

This is the reality about which the prophets came to warn. And no one will go to hell except they chose it. No one will go to hell except they chose themselves to be there. Because Allah will say to the people on the day of judgment, enough is your own soul to condemn yourself. Enough is your own soul. Allah will not have to even judge anybody. Enough is your own soul to bring yourself to account.

And there is not one person in paradise, not one, except that they do not deserve to be there. And that they have entered into paradise and been entered into paradise through the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Conclusion: The Choice Is Yours

Brothers and sisters, the choice is yours. The choice is yours. Take the path that you will to take. But this is the reality of the reason for which we have been created.

"And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me."

We have been created to choose to worship Allah, the true God, the creator of the heavens and earth, that we should worship Him alone. And that we should do that according to the way He has taught us, the way that He has taught us, according to what He has revealed in the Quran, and shown us through the example of His last and final messenger, Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam.

اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلَّمَ

"O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon his family and companions and grant them peace."