Quran-Universe Parallel Reading: Chapter Takwir – Part 6

81: 12 “and when hell is made to burn fiercely”

Hell represents denying the truth.  Denying the truth represent going against one’s nature.  When someone goes against his/her nature, s/he experiences the contradiction. We need to concentrate on the application of this verse right now in this universe so we can be comfortable about how we should believe that there should be another creation where we will experience the effect of what we have done here. How true is it? That is, if you do not see the signs of it here, then you would not believe in the next creation. Otherwise it looks like a fable if you do not experience and confirm “another creation” while you are in this world. In principle, we should study the Quran in order to see its application in our lives here and now.

How does the Quran describe Hell?

“O you who believe!  Save yourselves and your people from a fire whose fuel is men and stones; over it are angels stern and strong, they do not disobey God in what He commands them and do as they are commanded.”

Tahrim (66):6 

“Fuel of Hell consists of human beings”, what does it mean?

Comment: Our humanity.

We do not know the nature of what will happen in the next creation because there is no explanation but it will be Eternal and never ending is what the Quran claims. But now I should understand what Hell is. Hell is such a creation that the fuel of which is human beings himself/herself.

Comment: In Hell, all bad characters such as denial, injustice, jealousy burn.

That may be true but specifically we need to understand Hell as far as our existence is concerned. We need to concentrate on who we are in this world. If I see myself as a result of random happening or natural development (things evolved in a certain way by their own choice), this understanding will be the fuel of our own Hell. God says: “you will bring your own fuel, I will not give you anything extra”. This means that whatever we deserved from our understanding will be experienced.” In other words, if you appreciate the world in a particular way, accordingly you will be treated. It means what we do in this world; we choose from among options and decide.

Hell understanding: There is no conscious Creator who gave existence to me and I just happen to be as I am and there is no meaning in my existence. If one chooses this option, then he will be treated accordingly with no meaning and purpose. In this world what we see is that we are going to die and everything will come to an end which means complete annihilation. Hell is described as complete annihilation i.e. you have no value and you will be gone into non-existence. You will be treated accordingly.

When we compare this to Paradise, it is one’s understanding of his/her existence. In other words, how do you understand your existence?

In a black and white scenario, Paradise is the best scenario and Hell is the worst scenario. No one can be in the worst or best scenario; we will be in the middle as we are in this world. In order to make the case clear, we take extreme examples. No one can say that I will be in Hell or at the highest level of Paradise. Which direction we are taking HERE as far as our understanding of existence is concerned is important! The direction which takes me to Hell i.e. complete denial, complete purposelessness, and hopelessness or the opposite which takes me to Paradise i.e. I belong to the Eternal One and everything is from Him and He has no time limit or any kind of limit, He is the Absolute One so He provides everything for me and I belong to Him.

With the above alternatives, we usually take one side such as I believe in God and I am OK. How have I developed my senses and educated them accordingly? If someone says that they want to become, say, a lawyer and register with a law school but never attend the classes, can they become a lawyer? No. Without attending the classes, affiliation with the law school cannot give him any value. Similarly, if you say that I believe in God and train your senses according to your worldy expectations and conditions of this world rather than what this world refers to, then you are no different than the student affiliated with a law school and not attending the classes.

Everything in this world refers to what?

If someone does not interact with this world in order to find out what the qualities here refer to, then s/he is not developing his/her human qualities which are given to be used to find out the Source of their existence. Everything here draws our attention that this is from the Absolute Creator, Designer, Merciful One, Orderer… all my senses belong to Him. You start developing this understanding within yourself and accordingly interact with the world. This improved capacity of your senses is your human side. Body ultimately is nothing but we have to use it to see the meaning. Just like a book, what do you do with the book? You read it and get meaning from it. What do you do afterwards? You give it to someone else. Book is like the body but the meaning is related to our human capacity. Anything that we interact with in this world, we get a meaning from it.

Example: If you eat the body of the pomegranate without reflecting on its existence which refers to the qualities of its Maker, what happens is that the pomegranate connects its bodily side with your body. That is, when you eat the pomegranate, it dies. Similarly, when we die, what is left? The soul is left. Has the soul been educated or trained while eating the pomegranate? Did you acknowledge that pomegranate refers to Mercy from its Creator? No.

Stop being a student in the school of the universe without attending the classes! Registering as a student means nothing if you are not using the universe to understand your existence. The most important book that serves as a guide to you has been put on the shelves but you never learn anything from it and your soul has not been educated through its teaching. When the eyes looked at the letters on it, when we die, eyes rot. What is left? Nothing. This situation is similar to attending a class where you pay attention not to the teachings of the Professor but what kind of shirt s/he is wearing and the size of the classroom and the Professor’s voice. When you go out of the class, what is left with your soul? Nothing is left.

The point in being in this world is what are you learning from this existence and accordingly how you are training the human side? This human side will remain in the next creation. After coming out of the school of this universe, we are left with our human side. If we leave this universe with the qualities that we have developed, that will be our asset. The rest that we have not educated/developed ourselves with will be with us and will constitute our Hell because they will be meaningless and they will have no hope i.e. the people who did not accept that they belong to an Absolute Being and accordingly trained themselves learn nothing and their soul is left with no value. That is what Hell means as per the verse.

Question: What does “stone” refers to?

The “stone” is something that you made up. In other words, whatever you deified becomes your stone. Example: the pomegranate satisfied me. That will be your stone in the next creation. Instead of getting the pomegranate, you will get “stone” i.e. meaninglessness. Instead of reading the meaning inscribed in the pomegranate just like the book, you will be just given the book physically, not the meaning.

• Fuel= your understanding

What we have deified will be the bricks of the place in Hell. It means the paper of books or purposeless existence of the pomegranate for example, not the taste and pleasure from the Creator of the pomegranate because they did not turn into Eternity as you did not see the manifestation of the Eternal Absolute qualities of its Maker on the pomegranate. You treated the pomegranate as a book consisting of paper only not the meaning.

All Quranic languages that say that God will punish you there, we say how will God burn me and torture me which kind of God is it? This is an inevitable human question. This is the way the order is created which is such that: If you do not see the meaning which is obvious to you, then you get Hell. You should not reduce the existence of the pomegranate to its material being only but the importance of the pomegranate is to introduce its Maker to you so you will get acquainted with the Maker of the pomegranate. If you see that it is purposefully prepared by a Merciful One who knows you and treats you in the best way then you say that my Creator is taking care of me, He is the Merciful One, I am happy with Him not the pomegranate itself.

Pomegranate only consists of particles which have no meaning that they know you and adjust their existence accordingly to entertain you; they have no consciousness and will. Particles exist as they are made nothing more. None of the particles have will in order to decide and choose to serve you. No one can show any quality on them. Quran describes that when people of denial eat or drink something in this world of training, they drink it to quench their thirst only, not to recognize Mercy in the existence of water. As a result, they will be given something which will increase their thirst like drinking salty water. Why? You are hungry and want to be treated in a nice way. But if you eat pomegranate as a meaningless thing then it loses all its Eternal qualities and become just atoms (piles of atoms is something like earth). The experience becomes similar to eating tasteless things as you have not developed your human qualities. That is what we understand from the descriptions of Hell and Paradise in the Quran. This is not only what Quran says but that is how we understand. Just as the Professor tries his best to teach something and if student does not listen, s/he does not learn anything and at the end of the education system, s/he gets not degree. Can the student say that this Professor is harsh, rude and unfair to me because he gave me a Failing grade? No. Does the student have any right to complain about the Professor? No. The Professor will say that I tried to teach and created everything in a meaningful way but you did not learn anything.

Question: How do we know that our souls are learning?

We are speaking in theoretical terms. Check yourself. What did I learn and not learn? What did I refer the existence of the pomegranate to? How did I do that? That is your case. We are not studying the practical personal experiences of people such as you will fail or pass… By definition if you get no reference to its Creator and do not educate your feelings that you belong to this Creator then you get nothing. If you get all the meaning and educate your human side according to the meaning that introduces the Creator of the pomegranate to you and that you also belong to this Creator, then you educate yourself and get ready to receive your Lord, Creator.

The Professor example above, with the failing student represents a person who has no Lord and s/he is an accidental happening and experiences complete annihilation at every moment. Believers understand that those people who educate their human qualities they do not experience complete annihilation but full reference to its Eternal source of existence. One side is Eternal non-existence and the other side is Eternal existence. Now which direction should one take? One side gets meaning of its existence and the other does not. That is what naturalist say “that the universe is meaningless; when I die everything will come to an end as far as I am concerned ”.

Comment: Extreme and negative experiences from our soul such as poisonous food becomes a bad experience. After the negative experience, people disbelief.

The order of creation says do not go there. If I eat rotten pomegranate, my Creator is informing me through its bad smell and horrible taste that I should not eat it. Everything in the universe is in the order of the creation and is the way to teach how to see God’s creation to you i.e. not to eat rotten pomegranate. The order of creation is the will of its Creator. Why pomegranate got rotten? Did I collect more than I need? Some will go bad if I do not eat so either benefit from it or share it with others without wasting. That is the order of the universe. The order in the existence of the universe demonstrates the will of its Creator.

Why it became rotten is another subject? Throwing rotten things in the garbage is the will of the Creator asking me to throw it and put it on earth and that requires consciousness, and, thus, acknowledgment is necessary! Otherwise you are like an animal just sniffing and not finding meaning in it. If I do not get the meaning that it is given by its Creator for me to understand and grasp the will of the Creator which is teaching me to throw away, then you are in Hell and not developing your human qualities. If something is not utilized and wasted, it goes into the trash can. That is to say, if you waste your potentialities what happens, it will go into the trash can. That is your choice!

• Hell is the trash can of our choices!

What do angels refer to in the verse above?

Angels represent the aspect of creation which looks to its Creator. Example when you read a book, you communicate with the author of the book. How do you communicate with the author? Through the meaning. The meaning in creation ties you up with the Creator if you are aware of it. If you are not aware of it, you connect your soul with the body of the things and get no message. As a result, you have no connection with the Creator and you are left with atoms. Atoms will be destroyed (as the Quran says) as your body will be destroyed at the end.

If you take out the meaning, what is left? Paper, do you call sheets of paper as “book”? No, it is just matter and you throw it in the trash can. If you treat the universe without using its meaning as a means to communicate with its author, the author of the universe, this meaning which connects you to this author is called “angel”. That is, the angelic side of creation which introduces you to its author and ties you up with its author. If you do not see meaning which connects you to the author, then you have not experienced or connected yourself to the angelic side of creation.

Angels represent the meanings manifested in things. Meaning is from its Creator. Whatever meaning the Creator has loaded on the things, they represent this meaning. Is there any way that the meaning in the book will disobey the author? Something to think about!!!

As far as we are concerned, we can be sure that the universe manifests some meaning which we cannot attribute to the universe itself. Just as the meaning of the book cannot be attributed to its paper and ink, impossible! The universe carries a meaning and this meaning is directly connected to its author and it cannot disobey the will of the Author of the universe, the Creator. Impossible!

“Angels do not disobey God” means that whatever the order as it is given existence by the will of its Creator, the order makes it exactly as it is willed to be. Who can change the order of the universe? Example: scientists create rain bombs now where you can bring clouds and cause rain. Are you challenging the Creator by making the rain bombs? No I am just using the laws in creation to make the rain bomb. It means that it is within the laws of creation to do so. Nothing can happen against the will of the Creator. Even when people destroy the natural environment they do so by their choice and by obeying the will of the Creator.

Comment: I can choose the gender of my baby.

When I play with the genes, I am not challenging God’s will. I am just following the will of the Creator. Take the knife to cut the onion or you can cut someone’s throat. That is what freewill means. You are free to modify the DNA but you cannot do it if it is not within the order of the creation or, in another words, the will of the Creator. In both cases, I am always obeying the will of the Creator.

• Example: I am turning to the right; I am obeying the will of the Creator. I am free to turn left and while turning left, I am obeying the will of the Creator. I am just using the facility provided by the Creator. We cannot disobey the will of the Creator even when we can choose not to obey the order, still we obey the order, but we can deny that it is from God. if one says “I am not going to walk.” What he does is to sit, while sitting this person still obeys the order while sitting. He cannot sit without obeying the order in creation. The matter is this: Whether we acknowledge the fact that we are always obeying the order established by the One Who gave existence to the order of the universe, or we do not acknowledge this fact. We are only free in denying the reality in existence or confirming it.

Comment: If selecting gender is under Allah’s will, is it halal or haram to choose gender?

You can take a knife and kill someone and ask, “is it permissible or non-permissible?”. Human choice is given to us. What is your criterion for choosing something? You can use the knife to slaughter the sheep and that depends on how conscious you are of what you are doing. If you say, according to my values, girls are better, then you are following your values rather than the will of the Creator and thus deciding to obey.

We are given the permission to choose. Whatever you desire, you are given the permission to do it. Example: when we pray, we turn towards “Qiblah.” We are expected to turn to Qiblah, which represents that nothing in the world has Divinity or Divine qualities. We are in the world and how do we express ourselves that nothing in this world is worth worshipping? By turning towards Qiblah, we express that nothing is Divine in this world. In this world, nothing is Divine means there must be an Absolute Creator not of the nature of this universe because nothing has the quality to give existence to anything, that is, nothing is the Creator here. How can I explain the existence of this universe, since nothing is the Creator here or has the quality to create here? Qabah represents God on Earth i.e. a reminder that there is no God here. By declaring that there is no God here is the only way to understand God as being not of the nature of this world.

Comment: We cannot disobey the laws of the Creator. By creating a rain bomb or cutting with a knife, you are still obeying the laws of the Creator. How does freewill plays in?

You just chose amongst what is already created for you. Example: Believing in God is a choice. You can ignore the Creator and deny that the universe has a meaning which refers to its Creator. You can disconnect your existence and its meaning from the Creator saying that the meaning of the book is from the paper. If someone says that book does not have an author and the meaning is from the paper, you are insulting the author. That is disobedience in your understanding. No one can disobey in creation, you have to obey the order of the Creator. But you are free to reject the meaning that the creation is presenting to you.

Comment: Why did God let me slap this person? I can make this argument.

You can do that but deep down you know that you are going against your human nature which is endowed in you by your Creator. You are free to choose that option. People who join the army and serve “their country” come back from wars and suffer from problems. Physically, you cannot disobey God. If you want to commit suicide because you cannot wait for your appointed time, you hang yourself, which is obeying the order of the Creator of the universe. It will be your appointed time. No one kills themselves without obeying God. We have to educate our human soul with the meaning that we extract from creation. Otherwise, our case is similar to the student who just pays attention to the Professor’s attire and loses himself in the matter only and reduces his value to material side of his existence only.

Comment: It seems here that there will not be any consequences to what we do here.

Yes, as far as training yourself, whether you are connecting yourself consciously to the angels bringing the news from the Creator to you and you acknowledge the Creator through the meaning that the angels bring to you.

If you do not learn this, your soul has not been educated in any way at all. It means that you will be the stone or the fuel of your Hell. Angelic side of creation refers to the meaning. If you ignore the meaning, instead, follow baseless whisperings represented by Satan then you are disobeying God i.e. disconnecting yourself from your Creator which is the function of “Satan.” “Satan” is not an individual being trying to mess you up. It is just an option presented to you as a means of making the distinction between the right and the wrong. You ought to use baseless Satanic option to make the right choice to get the meaning which connects you to the Source.

Comment: How do we interpret freewill? God has already written our choices.

How do you know, were you with God when He was writing? Narrating what you hear from your grandma does not work in this class!!! BE A HUMAN BEING IN THIS SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSE!!!

Comment: Let me rephrase, some say, if everything is already written, then why am I reasoning then?

We are not defending personal ideas here and passing judgements about people. We are just sharing our ideas and speaking to humanity and inviting humanity to connect with the Creator. If Islam is the religion of the Creator, then when a person connects himself/herself to the Creator, then s/he will be Muslim. Otherwise there is no way to be a Muslim.

Comment: Angels are conveying the message to us, are they teachers that we are getting educated from?

Always look at the matter from your aspect. Look at the book, it is meaningful. You cannot attribute meaning to the paper and ink. There is a conscious being who reflected his knowledge in the book and this meaning comes from the will of the author. The meaning cannot disobey the author, that is my conclusion. If you say that angels bring the news, it is against the principles that the human mind works and that is the fallible situation when you start thinking from unknown aspect of creation, it does not make sense. I have not seen the angels bring the news, but what I see here there is meaning in the existence of every being and this meaning cannot be attributed to anything of the being itself or to another being in this universe. My logical conclusion is that this meaning is coming from the Author of this being. That is why the teachings of the Quran turned into legend because they say “God says so it must be so”. Instead, if it is really true and it is from the Creator of the universe then I have to check it with the meaning I extracted from the universe which must be from its author. We have to learn how to establish our methodology of understanding the reality in the creation as well as in my being. We are training here how to think, how to improve ourselves!

Comment: If I am reading the Quran with the intention of connecting to God, is my understanding different from that of another person?

Don’t bother to speak further. How do you know that the Quran connects you to God? Where does your intention come from? You cannot establish any attitude with your previous concepts. Here in this class, claims do not work. Bring your evidence. If you have not established the truth through your own investigation, then you are in trouble.

Comment: As Muslims we are traditionally accustomed to claiming that we believe in the Quran.

You come to these classes as a new born by questioning your existence using your human qualities to understand yourself and through that you understand who your Creator is.

Belief means one’s conviction. You have to believe in something by convincing yourself as a human being. Muslims are human beings. If you are convinced about the truthfulness of the message of the Quran, you say that as a human being I have concluded that the Quran is the speech of my Creator and I have these evidences, working on them for 10 years. Otherwise you just repeat the word “belief” with no meaning. Belief means certainty, full conviction as a result of investigating.

After several years of studying you understand that the Quran must be the word of my Creator. We are training our understandings here. I have to believe in something by convincing myself as a human being.

While we are educating ourselves, we may make a mistake. Were you a 100 % sure that whatever the Professor taught you makes sense before hearing what s/he taught you and trying to understand that they make sense to you. We always go through a learning process. Why did you go to school then? We learn through trial and error. Trial and error is the most appreciative human quality that we should not be afraid of. We should start with our errors. The Quran also starts with correcting the error (lailaha illallah). First, try to be aware of the existence of the errors in your life so that you can scratch your head (i.e. think about it) and say that if there is no Creator here and nothing has Divine quality here, how come this universe exists? That opens up your view for learning: Every learning springs out of ignorance and error. Don’t be afraid of it! That is why the Quran’s teaching says that human beings are created from dead and then given life. We knew nothing, we were nothing and we are granted life now.

• Teaching of the Quran: we came to life after being totally nonexistent; we are given life out of inanimate material which are “dead” in their nature. That is, when we are given death here, we must definitely be brought to life in another type of creation. This conclusion is based on our evidence here when we see dead earth come back to life again in every spring.