Fear of Resurrection and the Day of Judgment

A third reason prevented the Quraysh from

following Muhammad, namely, the terror of the
resurrection on the Day of Judgment with its
punishment of hell. They were a people
immersed in recreation and the pursuit of
pleasure; trade and usury were their means to
its attainment. Those of them who could afford
to indulge in these pursuits did not see in
them anything immoral and felt no imperative to
avoid them. Through their idol worship
they thought that their evil deeds and sins could
all be atoned for and forgiven. It was
sufficient for a man to strike a few arrows at the
foot of the statue of Hubal for him to
think that anything he was about to undertake
was blessed if not commanded by the god.
It was sufficient to sacrifice something to these
idols for him to have his sins and guilt
wiped out and forgotten. Therefore, to kill, to
rob, to commit adultery, to indulge in
unbecoming speech and indecency were all
proper and permissible as long as one was
capable of bribing those gods and placating them
with sacrifices.
On the other hand, Muhammad was proclaiming
that the Lord was standing in wait for
them, that they will be resurrected on the day of
judgment, and that their works will be
their only credit. Moreover, he did so with verses
of such tremendous, power that they
shook men's hearts to the foundation and threw
their consciousness into horror and panic.
The Qur'an proclaimed: "But when the deafening
cry is heard, when man would flee from
his brother, from his father and mother, his wife
and children, everyone will have enough
to concern himself with his own destiny. On that
day some faces will be bright, joyous and
gay. Others will be dark and gloomy. The latter
are the unbelievers, the wicked."
[Qur'an, 80:33-42]
It proclaimed that the deafening cry would come-
"the day when heaven will be
like molten copper, when mountains will be like
flakes of wool, when no friend will be able
to concern himself for his friends. Beholding the
fate which is to be theirs, the condemned
will wish to ransom themselves with their own
children, their wives and brothers, their
tribes that gave them protection, even the whole
of mankind if such could save them from
the impending doom. No indeed! There shall be a
flame of fire, burning and dismembering,
grasping without relief him who turned his back
to the call of God, who played deaf to the
moral imperative, who hoarded wealth and
withheld it from the needy . . . ."[Qur'an,70:8-
18]
"On that day you will be presented before God;
none of your secrets will be hidden. Then,
he who has received his record with his right
hand will say: `Come, read my record. I had
rightly thought that I was to meet my reckoning.'
Such a man will lead a blessed life in a
lofty garden whose fruits are ripe and within
reach. When he is brought therein he will be
told: Eat and drink joyfully for in the days gone
by, you have done the good deeds.' As for
him who is given his record in his left hand he
will say: `Would I that I had never been
given my record; that I never knew of my
reckoning. Oh, would that death had made an
end of me! My wealth is of no avail, and my
power has come to naught.' To him God will
say: `Seize him and fetter him. Broil him in the
fire. Then bind him in a chain seventy
cubits long. For he did not believe in Almighty
God, nor did he urge the feeding of the
hungry. Today, he shall have no loyal friends and
no food except what is foul, which none
eat except his fellow sinners.[Qur'an, 69:18-37]
After this I may ask the reader: Have you read
this well? Did you ponder every word of it?
Have you fully understood its meaning? Are you
not petrified and panic-stricken? But that
is only a portion of Muhammad's warning to his
people. You read these verses today and
remember that you have read them many times
over before. Concurrently with your
reading, you will remember the Qur'an's
description of hell. "On that day, We shall ask
hell, `Are you full?' And hell will answer: `Give
me more!' . . . Whenever their skins wear
out, We shall give them new skins that they may
continue to suffer the
punishment." [Qur'an, 50:30; 4:56].
You can well imagine then the horror which must
have struck Quraysh, especially the rich among
them wallowing in the protection of their
gods and idols whenever Muhammad warned
them of the imminent punishment. It would
then become easy for you to appreciate the
degree of their enthusiasm in belying
Muhammad, opposing him, and urging the
people to fight him. Previous to the Prophet's
preaching, the Arabs had no idea of the Day of
Judgment or of the resurrection, and they
did not believe what they heard thereof from
non-Arabs. None of them thought that he
would be reckoned with after death for what he
had done in this world. Whatever concern
they had for the future was limited to this world.
They feared disease, loss of wealth and
children, of power and social prestige. This life,
to them, was all there is to life. Their
energies were exhausted in the amassing of the
means with which to enjoy this life and to
keep it safe from misfortune. The future was
utterly opaque. Whenever their consciences
were disturbed by a premonition of evil following
upon their misdeeds, they had recourse
to divination by arrows, pebbles, or bird chasing
in order to dissipate the fear or confirm it.
If confirmed they would sacrifice to their idols
and thereby avoid the imminent misfortune.
As for reckoning after death, resurrection, and
the Day of Judgment-paradise for the
virtuous and hell for the unjust-all this
completely escaped them despite the fact that
they
had heard of it in connection with the religion of
the Jews and of the Christians.
Nonetheless, they never heard of it described
with such emphatic, frightening, indeed
horrifying, terms and seriousness such as
Muhammad's revelation had brought to them.
What they had heard of before Muhammad never
succeeded in pressing home to them the
recognition that their continued life of pleasure,
pursuit of wealth, exploitation of the weak,
robbery of the orphan, neglect of the poor, and
excess in usury, would surely incur eternal
punishment. They had no idea of impending
suffering in the depth of hell, and when they
heard of it described in these terms, it was
natural for them to be seized with panic. How
strongly they must have felt when they realized,
though they did not openly admit it, that
the other world with its reward and punishment
is truly there, waiting for them only one
step beyond this life which was soon to end in
death!