Ali Ataie – End Times & The Afterlife
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
According to ibn Jizay Al Kalbi, Rahmatullah,
one of the major themes or forms of
composition
found in the Quran
is the hereafter.
In particular, the Quran often describes the last
day,
This expression is also found in the New
Testament.
The Johannine Jesus often speaks of certain events
happening,
on the last day.
Therefore, the study of last things or eschatology
is a branch of theology that deals with
death, also known as the lesser hour,
the signs of the last day,
the last day itself, also known as the
day of judgment,
or the greater hour,
and
finally, paradise and the fire, the ultimate destinations
of human beings.
With respect to our death or the lesser
hour,
the proof of Islam, Imam Abuhamad al Ghazali,
offered this powerful and poignant statement in his
famous.
Praise be to God, who with death did
break the necks of tyrants,
shattering with it the backs of Persia's kings,
cutting short the aspirations of the Caesars
whose hearts were long averse to recalling death
And until the true promise came to them
and cast them into the pit.
From the loftiest of palaces to the deepest
of graves, they passed.
And from the light of the cradle to
the gloom of the sepulcher.
From dallying with maidens and boys into sustaining
insects and worms, they passed.
From reveling in food and drink into wallowing
in the earth.
From the friendliness of company into the forlornness
of solitude,
and from the soft couch into the woeful
perdition.
See if they had found any strength and
protection from death, or taken against it a
barrier and refuge.
See the verse.
Do you perceive
even one of them
or hear from them so much
as a whisper?
Imam Al Ghazari, book 40.
Speaking of the hour, as in the hour
of our judgment,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the
Quran,
Indeed, the hour is coming. There is no
doubt about it. However, most of the people
do not believe.
As Muslims, we have confidence in ultimate accountability
that we will all stand judgment before Allah
who is the all knowing, the all wise,
and all just sovereign lord of the universe.
Our belief in the day of judgment is
based upon clear statements in our sacred texts.
It is according to the Sam Eiryat, sacred
tradition transmitted to us that describes supra rational
events.
And indeed, I would argue that belief in
a day of judgment is rational.
Human beings constantly seek to establish justice in
the world.
Injustice is repugnant to us.
This desire seems to be somehow innate,
inherent
in part of our collective conscience as a
species.
We establish courts and judges and witnesses.
Establishing courts of justice is one of the
7 Noahitic laws.
These are laws that strike the human intellect
as being self evidently true,
axiomatically
correct,
does anyone really believe that rapists and murderers
and oppressors
who were never brought to justice in this
world simply get away with it?
An atheist once told me that people will
always get what they deserve.
Like karma? I inquired.
He said, yes. Like karma.
I replied,
I thought you were a materialist.
Karma is a sophisticated
metaphysical process.
Who is regulating and controlling that process?
There was no rejoinder.
Sometimes, it is difficult for people to come
to grips with the logical conclusion
of their worldview.
If we take materialistic
atheism to its logical conclusion,
then it is impossible to be objectively immoral.
In other words, there can be no true
right or wrong.
On atheism, we are just random fizzing molecules
and stardust.
Imagine a stone rolling down a hill. The
stone strikes the earth as it bounces.
Just atoms colliding with atoms.
Now imagine a man pulling a trigger and
firing a bullet into another man.
Again, just atoms colliding with atoms.
On atheism, there is no real difference between
what the stone did and what the man
did with the gun.
What makes one set of atoms moral and
the other set of atoms immoral?
The answer is nothing.
On atheism, murder is simply a breach of
a subjective societal norm.
It cannot be objectively wrong because there is
no higher standard of morality,
and there's nothing beyond the physical.
Nothing and no one is watching us or
taking an account of our actions.
Apparently, we are just a bunch of carbon
based primates
living on some backwater planet on the edge
of some random solar system.
As Richard Dawkins famously said, there is, quote,
no design, no purpose,
no
evil, no good,
nothing but blind, pitiless indifference, end quote.
Now Dawkins and the rest of his neo
atheist ilk imagined that without religion, the world
would be a much better place.
But consider the following thought experiment offered by
the modern philosopher David Berlinksy,
whose book, the devil's delusion, directly confronts Dawkins,
the god delusion.
Imagine that there was a magic button.
If someone were to press this button,
mountains of gold would magically come into his
possession.
However, there's a catch.
One human being somewhere in the world would
fall down dead.
You don't know who or where.
So here's the question.
To whom would you entrust this button?
To an atheist who doesn't believe in ultimate
accountability,
who doesn't affirm that there's any authority above
that of human beings,
who says that there's no law above human
invention,
who contends confidently that there's no such thing
as evil?
Or would you entrust it to a theist
who believes in God,
a theist who affirms ultimate accountability?
A theist who says,
I truly fear,
if I were to disobey my lord,
the torment of a tremendous day.
Which worldview makes for a more prosperous, peaceful,
and just society?
I think the answer is obvious.
In the Quran, sometimes the rationale for a
certain commandment is mentioned explicitly.
Allah
says,
Indeed, the prayer prevents one from indecency and
wrong action.
If you have to pray 5 times a
day at different times with,
engaging in fasha and munkar become very, very
difficult.
Imam Al Khultubi and Imam Azmakhshari
mentioned in their tafasir
that the prophet
said of a young man who prayed but
was inclined towards indecent acts,
soon his prayer will prevent him from doing
that.
The prayer you see is time tested,
but we have to be patient and constant.
The prayer comes from Allah,
So we must trust the process.
It works.
The worst thing we can do is leave
the prayer. The prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, said,
Between disbelief and belief is leaving the prayer.
Or we might say, leaving the prayer takes
one from a state of confidence
to a state of ingratitude.
Or abandoning the prayer is also a major
sign of the hour according to.
Another major sign of the hour, not unrelated
to abandoning the prayer, is the coming of
the imposter messiah or antichrist.
The belief in the coming of the imposter
messiah
is an important aspect of Islamic eschatology
that is often unfortunately neglected.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam warned us about
his emergence due to the prophet's profound concern
for the well-being of his nation.
The prophet is in the words of Allah,
Deeply concerned about you, kind and merciful to
the believers.
We read in the hadith,
The messenger of Allah
used to seek refuge in Allah
from the punishment of *, the punishments of
the grave, and from the imposter, Messiah. Of
course, the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam is free
from these things, protected from these things,
But he is teaching us by example.
There is for you in the messenger of
God a beautiful example of conduct.
He is the great teacher. He said,
I was only sent as a teacher.
The prophet is even reported to have said,
the imposter messiah will not appear until the
people become negligent
in talking about him and until the preachers
on the pulpits
stop mentioning him.
In an extraordinary hadith recorded in the sunan
of Abu Dawood, the prophet Muhammad is
reported to have said,
Let him who hears of the imposter messiah
keep a distance from him.
For I swear by Allah that a man
will come to him thinking he's a firm
believer
and end up following him because of confused
ideas,
Because of heretical matters,
Shubuhat
roused in him by the impostor messiah.
The impostor messiah and not just the actual
physical person,
but the culture, the system, the zeitgeist of
the imposter messiah raises shubuhat
in the religion.
In other words, people who identify as Muslim
will eventually leave Islam and follow the imposter
messiah because the imposter messiah will confuse them
and cause them to doubt their religion.
The imposter messiah will raise suspicions concerning normative,
that is to say, traditional
Islam in light of the current zeitgeist.
He will attempt to redefine Islam,
and we know that if words lose their
definitions,
then they can mean whatever we want,
whatever makes us feel good. This is happening
right now on a massive scale.
Even words like man, woman, marriage,
family, even beauty and virtue
are becoming more and more difficult to define.
One of the ways in which we can
protect ourselves from the antichristic influence
is to establish the prayer.
Again, the worst thing we can do during
these times is to abandon the prayer.
Abandoning the prayer leaves us wide open for
attack.
Let us not render ourselves low hanging fruit
for the culture of the imposter Messiah,
a culture which advocates a myopic worldview,
a worldview in which the world is all
there is,
A worldview
where the only thing that matters is matter.
A materialistic
and hedonistic worldview of absolute autonomy
that is complete
self rule,
something that looks like paradise, but in reality
leads to the fire.
The prophet said,
There shall come a time upon the people
in which the one who is patient upon
his religion
will be like the one clutching onto a
burning ember.
One could argue that this is certainly true
in today's world.
Many people of traditional religious practice and belief,
the youth in particular,
feel tremendous pressure to capitulate to the status
quo of society,
this liberal world order, in order to mitigate
internal feelings of alienation.
However, we should remember that as believers,
we are not meant to feel all that
comfortable in this world.
The world is the prison of the believer.
This discomfort is completely normal.
Our real comfort is in the next world.
The prophet said, glad tidings to the strange
ones.
I often find myself repeating the following ayat
from the Quran.
It gives me solace. Allah
says to the prophet
and by extension to all of us,
Indeed, we know that what they say causes
your heart to be constricted.
But glorify the praise of your lord and
be of those who prostrate.
And worship your lord until certitude
comes to you. And almost all of the
exegesis of the Quran
say here that al Yaqeen
means death.
Worship of Allah
is a lifelong
practice of a believer.
So I mentioned the imposter messiah, but what
about the true messiah? What is his role
in Islamic eschatology?
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us in the
Quran about our master, Isa bin Mariam alaihi
And indeed, he, Isa alaihi salaam, is a
portent or sign of the hour.
So never be in doubt about it and
follow me. This is a straight path.
Many exigits of the Quran, including imam Tabari,
Al Kortubi, and Ibn Kathir mention that this
verse indicates the or
that is the return of the messiah Jesus,
peace be upon him, to the earth toward
the end of time.
This is in line with many sound ahadith
in which the prophet
spoke explicitly about the return of Jesus.
To the surprise of many Christians, Muslims actually
believe in the second coming of Christ.
The quote, unquote Muslim messiah is not the
Mehdi. This is a common piece of misinformation
that some Christian polemicists
seem to insist on advancing.
The Mehdi is the guided one from the
progeny of prophet Muhammad,
who will be a leader of the believers
at the end of time. But Jesus, the
son of Mary, is Al Masih, the Messiah.
The Quran says this explicitly,
and Jesus, peace be upon him, will vanquish
the imposter messiah.
Furthermore, the Quran tells us that Allah
spoke to our master Musa alaihi salaam. Allah
said,
Allah
said, Indeed,
I am Allah. There is no god save
me.
So worship me and establish the prayer for
my remembrance.
Interestingly, just as a side note, the pronoun,
meaning I am, is repeated here by Allah
when he introduces himself to Musa alayhi salam.
This subtlety in the text is also found
in the Torah.
The verb
meaning I am is repeated by Hashem when
he introduces himself to Moshe in Exodus 314.
Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh. I am who I am.
The purpose of this repetition seems to be
to stress the core attribute of God,
existence,
that God is the necessary and noncontingent
existent,
the very ground of being itself.
So after introducing himself to Musa, alaihis salam,
as the only god and commanding Moses to
worship him, Allah
commands Moses
not simply to pray, but to establish the
prayer, to make prayer the pillar of his
life.
Such is the importance of the canonical prayers.
Then Allah
spoke to Moses, peace be upon him, saying,
Indeed, the hour is coming.
I almost conceal it entirely,
that every soul shall be requited for what
it strove.
No one knows exactly when the sa'a, the
greater hour, will be established.
There are only portents. The exact date is
a secret that resides with
alone. Allah
says in the Quran,
They ask you concerning the hour, when will
it be established?
Say knowledge of this lies only with my
lord.
There is also the famous hadith of the
man who questioned the prophet
saying,
when is the
hour? The prophet responded with a better question.
And what have you prepared for it? The
man said,
Nothing except that I love Allah and his
messenger.
The prophet
responded,
You will be with those whom you love.
Then Anas
who narrated the hadith,
he said,
Nothing made us more joyous than the statement
of the prophet, you will be with those
whom you love.
Of course, there is also the famous Hadith
of Gabriel.
When Gabriel, peace be upon him, asked the
prophet to inform him about the hour.
The prophet responded,
The one being questioned knows no more than
the questioner.
In the earliest New Testament gospel, the gospel
of Mark,
even the mark in Jesus, who most Christians
believe to be God,
admits that even he does not know the
hour.
The mark in Jesus says,
but concerning that day and the hour,
nobody knows.
Not even the angels in heaven.
Nor the son.
But only the father. Only,
Mark 13 32.
The prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam is the
final prophet of God.
He is the first major sign of the
greater hour.
He, salallahu alaihi salam, once said while holding
up 2 fingers together,
The hour and I are like this. That
was 1400 years ago, but still a drop
in the ocean of time relatively speaking.
In the gospels, the prophet Jesus, peace be
upon him, is reported to have given a
few signs or portents of the hour. He
said, and you shall hear of wars and
rumors of wars.
Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against
kingdom.
There will be earthquakes in various places and
famines.
These are the beginnings of the sorrows.
But be on your guard, for they will
deliver you over to councils,
and you'll be beaten in synagogues, and you
will stand before governors and kings for my
sake, to bear witness before them. And brother
will deliver brother over to death,
and the father his child, and children will
rise against their parents
and have them put to death.
Mark chapter 13, and there are parallel passages
in Matthew and Luke.
It is in the Islamic prophetic eschatological
tradition, however,
where we find some truly astonishing predictions
attributed to our master, Muhammad, salallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
If we return to the hadith of Gabriel,
we see that Gabriel continued to question the
prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam. After asking the
prophet about the hour,
Gabriel said, tell me about the
of the hour.
That is the signs of the hour.
The prophet responded,
The slave girl will beget her mistress.
Of course, there are many ways in which
one may interpret this hadith.
The prophet was gifted with
speech comprehensive
in signification
and inundated with sapiens.
The most obvious meaning is that children will
disobey and disrespect their parents.
A second interpretation
states that due to numerous end time wars
and conflicts,
many slaves will be taken, and they will
have children.
These children would be free and thus be
masters over their own mothers.
A third interpretation offered by modern scholars
is that the prophet statement indicates a complete
breakdown
of normal society.
The other dismantling of millennia old social orders
and societal hierarchies.
This is a phenomenon that is happening before
our very eyes.
Self entitled cultural zealots shaking their fist at
1000 of years of human civilization
and traditional scholarship and attempting to construct a
radically egalitarian
utopia
in this world by any means necessary.
In other hadith of varying grades, the prophet
also spoke of the prevalence of massive violence
and sudden death.
The prevalence of sexual degeneracy leading to unprecedented
epidemics.
He said that women will walk around in
public naked yet clothed.
He spoke of a time when men will
marry other men,
when fornication will be in public, and when
illegitimate children will wreak havoc.
He said people will be suffocated by usury.
He said music will be heard everywhere, and
all kinds of alcohol will become prevalent.
He said time will become short.
Sacred knowledge will be withdrawn.
Temptations
will emerge.
Extreme avarice will descend,
and haraj will prevail.
The companions asked, what is haraj? He said,
utter brutality and bloodshed.
I leave you with this. The prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam advised us as to how to
protect ourselves from the imposter messiah and his
culture.
Abu Darda
reported in the hadith in Sahih Muslim that
the prophet
said,
Whoever memorizes the first ten verses of Surah
Al Kahf will be protected against the impostor
messiah.
He also reported, and this hadith is in.
Whoever reads
3 ayaat from the beginning of Suratul Kahf
will be protected against the tribulations
of the impostor messiah.
He also said
If the imposter messiah emerges and I am
among you, then I will contend with him
on your behalf.
But if he emerges and I am not
among you, then every person must contend for
himself.
But there's another way to translate this. If
the imposter messiah emerges and I am in
you,
then I will contend with him on your
behalf.
One of my teachers said could also mean
that we have internalized
the love of the prophet in our hearts,
the reverence of the prophet in our hearts,
the beauty and majesty of the prophet in
our hearts,
the teachings and sunnah of the prophet in
our hearts. If he, salallahu alaihi wasalam, is
alive in our hearts, then indeed the prophet
is contending on our behalf.
Will Allahum Musta'an. May Allah
help us, protect us, and accept our efforts.
May Allah
take our souls
while confidence in him and in his messenger
remain in our hearts.
And may he cause us to inherit the
gardens of paradise.