HELLFIRE HAS INTELLIGENCE
The words of the Holy verses indicate that, contrary to this world's fire, the fire in hell possesses sense and intelligence. Almighty Allah says :
On the day that We will say to hell: Are you filled up? And it will say: Are there any more? (50:30)
Meaning : The Day when We will ask hell: Are you full? It will reply: Are there more worthy of punishment still? It means: I still have room to accommodate them and a wish to burn these who are worthy of being burnt.
Moreover, hellfire recognizes those who deserve punishment. It will attack them. It has power of drawing (magnetic attribute). It will also scream.
Almighty Allah says :
When it shall come into their sight from a distant place, they shall hear its vehement raging and roaring. (25:12)
Meaning that when hellfire will see the people of hell from a distance it will, out of anger scream fiercely and it will be heard by the sinners.
THE LIGHT OF THE FAITHFULS WILL LOWER FLAMES OF HELL
Almost bursting for fury. (67:8)
It is mentioned in narrations that, when a faithful will be passing over the Sirat Bridge he or she will hear the voice of hell. 0 faithful! Please pass away quickly from above me as your light is cooling my flames. Since a believer has kindness and hellfire has anger, the Mercy of the Lord overtakes His anger.
0, One Whose Mercy precedes His Anger. 1
Thus there are many evidences with us to show that hellfire too, like
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1 Dua Kumail.
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all other substances in the Hereafter, possesses life, wisdom and intelligence. It is the friend of the friends of God and the enemy of the enemies of God.
SINNERS WILL LIVE IN A VERY CONGESTED PLACE
On of the attributes is also that despite its ability to accommodate all men and jinn and even then remaining empty, the sinners will live in extreme congestion like a nail in a wall:
And We will proceed to what they have done of deeds, so We shall render them as scattered floating dust. (25:23)
When the sinners will be hurled in the congested corner of hell, bound by chains of fire. Being harshly pressed they will desire death and say: Woe unto us!
As the righteous will be in ease and comfort and spaciousness and in light, those in hell will be in darkness and eternal terror quite like the one who is caught at the bottom of a sea, engulfed by layers of darkness over darkness.
Almighty Allah says :
When he holds out his hand, he is almost unable to see it; and to whomsoever Allah does not give light, he has no light. (24:40)
That is the darkness will be so grave that he will not be able to see his own hand despite trying to.
MENTAL OR SPIRITUAL TORTURE
For the people of hell, there will be mental and spiritual tortures too in addition to physical punishments and pains. One of them will be that they will always remember and realize that they have to remain in this terrible condition forever and to bear these troubles endlessly. They will never be saved from this chastisement. This will be the most unbearable thing for the sinners. There is no doubt that those unbelievers and hypocrites who died faithlessly despite the fact that arguments were completed before them, will forever remain in hellfire torture.
Lord Almighty says :
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Their reward with their Lord is gardens of perpetuity beneath which rivers flow, abiding therein for ever; Allah is well pleased with them and they are well pleased with Him; that is for him who fears his Lord. (98:8)
And at another place :
That is the reward of the enemies of Allah- the fire; for them therein shall be the house of long abiding; a reward for their denying Our communications. (41:28)
So the punishment for the enemies of God is hellfire in which they will dwell forever.
UNBELIEVER WILL NOT ENTER PARADISE
Rather, God has termed the exit of an unbeliever from hell as impossible. He says in the Holy Quran :
Surely (as for) those who reject Our communications and turn away from them haughtily, the doors of heaven shall not be opened for them, nor shall they enter the garden until the camel pass through the eye of the needle; and thus do We reward the guilty. (7:40)
That is, it is impossible, for an unbeliever to enter paradise. There are many traditions in this connection. Anyone who will have even an iota of Faith will not remain in hell forever.
DEPRIVATION FROM DIVINE BOUNTIES IS THE
WORST PUNISHMENT
Another spiritual torture is that a sinner in hell will always remember and lament that he has been deprived of innumerable Divine bounties of various kinds. Not only that, he will never get God's mercy but only His anger.
Says the Holy Quran :
Nay! most surely they shall on that day be debarred from their Lord. (83:15)
That is, they will not obtain Divine mercy, grace and reward. At
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another place :
Surely they shall have no portion in the hereafter, and Allah will not speak to them, nor will He look upon them on the day of resurrection nor will He purify them ... (3:77)
It means that there is no reward in the Hereafter and God will not even communicate with them and will have no mercy or kindness for them.
DEADLY REGRETS IN HELL
One of the spiritual or mental tortures in hell will be the regret and sorrow, which will make one desirous of death, had it been possible to die there daily. The Lord of the universe says about their grief pointing to their deeds :
Thus will Allah show them their deeds to be intense regret to them, and they shall not come forth from the fire. (2:167)
And also,
And the day when the unjust one shall bite his hands saying: 0! would that I had taken a way with the Apostle. (25:27)
Imam Sadiq (a.s.) is reported to have said that when the people of paradise and the people of hell will be settled in their respective places windows will open up between paradise and hell. An announcer will announce: 0 people of Paradise! Just look at the situation of the people of hell and their condition. Had you also disobeyed the Divine Commands you too would have been in this state in hell. Then will come another voice: 0 people of Hell! Look at the high-rise apartments of the people of Paradise. Had you obeyed Allah this comfort would have been for you also. This will make the sinners so gloomy that had it been possible to die in the Hereafter they would have died of their sorrow.
SCOLDING AND SPIRITUAL PUNISHMENT IN HELL
Among various tortures is the scolding, threatening and humiliation. All of theses will be meted out to the hell dwellers not only by God and Angels but by the people of paradise also, even by satans as
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mentioned in the Holy Quran :
O assembly of jinn and men! Did there not come to you apostles from among you, relating to you My communications and warning you of the meeting of this day of yours? They shall say: We bear witness against ourselves; and this world's life deceived them, and they shall bear witness against their own souls that they were unbelievers. (6:130)
Again God says :
Did We not preserve you alive long enough, so that he who would be mindful in it should mind? And there came to you the warner; because for the unjust, there is no helper. (35:37)
There are many other similar addresses: The angels guarding hell will also scold them as mentioned in the Holy Quran :
Whenever a group is cast into it, its keeper shall ask them: Did there not come to you a warner?
They shall say: Yea! indeed there came to us a warner, but we rejected (him) and said: Allah has not revealed anything, you are only in a great error.
And they shall say: Had we but listened or pondered, we should not have been among the inmates of the burning fire.
So they shall acknowledge their sins, but far will be (forgiveness) from the inmates of the burning fire. (67:8-11)
TAUNTING BY SATANS AND WITHHOLDING OF
WEEPING BY HELL DWELLERS
Even devils will taunt people of hell and they will make a mockery of them. It is mentioned that the sinners will not weep and cry and complain loudly for fear of being mocked by the devils. Says the Lord :
And the Shaitan shall say after the affair is decided: Surely Allah promised you the promise of truth, and I gave you promises, then failed to keep them to you, and I had no authority over you, except that I called you and you obeyed me, therefore do not blame me but blame yourselves: I cannot be your aider (now) nor can you be
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my aiders; surely I disbelieved in your associating me with Allah before; surely it is the unjust that shall have the painful punishment. (14:22)
You TOO FOUND IT TRUE WHAT WAS PROMISED TO YOU
The people of paradise will also scold the hell dwellers. God Almighty says :
And the dwellers of the garden will call out to the inmates of the fire: Surely we have found what our Lord promised us to be true; have you too found what your Lord promised to be true? They will say: Yes. Then a crier will cry out among them that the curse of Allah is on the unjust. (7:44)
Also God says :
So today those who believe shall laugh at the unbelievers; (83:34)
It means that indeed today the faithful will laugh over the unbelievers and make them targets of mockery and humiliation. It will be an answer to what the unbelievers were doing to the believers in the world.
Surely the disbelievers are rewarded as they did. (83:36)
STAY WITH THE SATANS IN HELL WILL BE A
PAINFUL PUNISHMENT
Among the spiritual punishments is also that of living with Satans and with all other hell dwellers. While the people of paradise will enjoy one another's company. The hell dwellers will abhor one another and they will be hating one another strongly. This has been hinted at in the Holy Quran :
And whoever turns himself away from the remembrance of the Beneficent God, We appoint for him a Shaitan, so he becomes his associate.
And most surely they turn them away from the path, and they think that they are guided aright: (43:36-37)
It means : "Those who will close their eyes from remembering Allah, We will make Satans overpower them who will be their permanent
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companion. Those Satans will restrain them from adopting the true path. But such people will (falsely) imagine that they had found the true path until the unbeliever will, along with his same devil fellow traveller come before Us in the place of punishment. Then he will say to the Satan: Alas! How nice it were had there been a distance of east and west between you and me because you are a bad companion."
It is narrated that both will be bound in one and the same chain and hurled into hell.
THEY WILL DENY ONE ANOTHER
Regarding the enmity between the helpers of oppressors and the followers of misguiding leaders, the Lord says :
When those who were followed shall renounce those who followed (them), and they see the chastisement and their ties are cut asunder.
And those who followed shall say: Had there been for us a return, then we would renounce them as they have renounced us. Thus will Allah show them their deeds to be intense regret to them, and they shall not come forth from the fire. (2:166-167)
Regarding enmity between hell dwellers, God Almighty says at another place in the Holy Quran :
Then on the resurrection day some of you shall deny others, and some of you shall curse others, and your abode is the fire, and you shall not have any helpers. (29:25)
Again He says :
The friends shall on that day be enemies one to another, except those who guard (against evil). (43:67)
Meaning that those who were friends in the world will become enemies, except faithful and righteous people. They will be friendly with one another as they were in the world.
It is mentioned that a friendship, which was not for the sake of God in the world will turn into enmity in the Hereafter.
Further the Almighty says :
This (shall be so); and most surely there is an evil resort for the inordinate ones; Hell; they shall enter it, so evil is the resting-place. This (shall be so); so let them taste it, boiling and intensely
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cold (drink). And other (punishment) of the same kind- of various sorts. (38: 55-58)
BLAMING ONE ANOTHER IN HELL
It is mentioned that when the misguiding leaders will be thrown into hell and when their followers will also be made to join them therein, the leaders will ask: Who are these people? (The keeper of hell will reply): This is a group, which will remain with you in all the hardships of hell. The leaders will say: Bad indeed (ominous) is their arrival. They are people of hell. The followers will reply: But you are ominous because you are the cause of our chastisement. So hell is a bad dwelling place. Then they will say: 0 our Lord! Give double punishment to those who caused this chastisement to us because they themselves were misguided and they misguided others also.
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The events, condition and dialogues quoted above are doubtlessly true. That is how the people of hell will quarrel with one another.
WILL THIS WEAK BODY BE ABLE TO BEAR
SUCH PUNISHMENTS?
Some doubts can possibly arise, in people's minds. We are briefly hinting to them here with their replies. One such question can be how man will be able to bear so much hard and painful punishment the lowest degree of which cannot even be imagined in the world?! He will be finished in the first strike. How hard is the punishment and how weak is man's body?!
MAN'S BODY WILL ALSO BECOME AS HARD AS HIS HEART
The answer to the above mentioned doubt is that though it is quite true that man will have this same body in the Hereafter too, but, by the power of God the Almighty, it will be made so strong that it cannot be compared with its previous form. In fact, in the Hereafter, the physical condition of man will be subject to his spiritual condition, both in hardness and softness. Just as the soul of the faithful was very soft and smooth in the world and it was being affected while facing every truth (as has been said by the Amirul Mo-mineen (a.s.) in Nahjul Balagha similarly, in the Hereafter too his body will be soft and smooth like their souls. Likewise bodies of unbelievers will be as hard and tough as their souls were in the
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1 Surah Saad 38:59.
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world.
God says in the Holy Quran :
Then your hearts hardened after that, so that they were like rocks, rather worse in hardness; (2:74)
Just as it is not bending before truth in the world it will remain harsh and stiff in the Hereafter too (like his heart).
IN THE HEREAFTER, TRUTH WILL OVERTAKE APPEARANC
It is mentioned that, in the Hereafter, the teeth of unbelievers become as big as the mountain of Uhad (then what would be his body like?). In other words, in the Hereafter the reality will overcome outward appearance. All facts will come out in the open and the inner and outer will become manifest.
On the day when hidden things shall be made manifest, (86:9)
Qiyamat is the Day of the unveiling of secrets. It is also mentioned that when the inner and outer organs of body will disintegrate and tear up by chastisement (such as eating Zaqqoom and drinking Hameem) all these body parts will recover soon again (rather the skin will be changed a number of times).
The Holy Quran mentions this clearly :
(As for) those who disbelieve in Our communications, We shall make them enter fire; so oft as their skins are thoroughly burned, We will change them for other skins, that they may taste the chastisement; (4:56)
IS PAINFUL PUNISHMENT BECOMING DIVINE JUSTICE?
Another doubt, which can come to man's mind, is: Are such severe punishments commensurate with Divine Justice?
Such doubt is the result of thinking that the Divine punishment is like the tortures inflicted by the despotic rulers of this world. But this imaginary likeness is in no way correct because what the worldly tyrants do is for taking personal revenge and for pleasing themselves by punishing their offenders. They want to cool their anger in that way. They frown upon those who oppose them; they boil in anger. In order to subside their wrath they order their imprisonment, torture and even killing etc. But the Divine punishment will not be like that. There, whatever will happen will be caused by what had happened in the world. If the sin is serious its punishment will also be serious and if the error was light its punishment will also be proportionately light. The result of
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faithlessness will be to remain in perpetual darkness. Turning away from God will result in permanent sandwiching and squeeze. The result of every trampled right will be everlasting blindness and deafness. The consequence of following devilish leaders will be dwelling with them forever. The essential result of eating the property of an orphan will be flaring of fire in the devilish devourer's stomach. This makes it clear that man will get hell fire by way of his own earning. He will be liable to various punishments in hell only because of his own misdeeds and evil character and misbehaviour. In the light of what is said in the Holy Quran the fuel of hell fire also will be wrongdoer persons :
Then be on your guard against the fire of which men and stones are the fuel; (2:24)
SELF PREPARED PUNISHMENT
It can be understood from the above that the reasons of getting punishments in hell will have been provided by the sinner himself. He had behaved wrongfully, unjustly and oppressively with himself. God never oppresses anyone :
Surely Allah does not do any injustice to men, but men are unjust to themselves. (10:44)
How at all an unbeliever ever be given entrance to paradise which is extremely Holy and soft place while that fellow had indulged in dirtiness, harshness, rebellion, deviation and disobedience to God? Paradise is a very secure and peaceful place where only healthy people can enter who do not have any foul illness. How can a man who is full of internal illnesses like envy, malignity, enmity, stinginess, pride, egotism, be allowed to enter paradise? The residence of such ill people is a hospital of hell, not the paradise that is a place of permanent peace.
ADORATION BEFORE THE BLIND AND SINGING
BEFORE THE DEAF!
The truth is that to allow an unbeliever entry to paradise is just like pouring scented oil on the head of a man who has lost his faculty of smelling due to severe cold. It is like putting a thing at an inappropriate place. (It is never commensurate with Divine Wisdom). It is called 'injustice' (zulm) in Arabic. Therefore hurling an unbeliever in hell is in no way against Divine Justice because in
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Arabic, Justice (Adl) means to put a thing in its appropriate place (God is Adil=Just). That is why entry of an unbeliever in paradise is impossible. It is totally against divine justice. He (the Unbeliever) can never enjoy paradise because it is just like a beautiful bride who adorns herself for a blind fellow or sings before a deaf person.
WHAT HAS THE MERCIFUL TO DO WITH PUNISHMENT!
Even after all that has been said above, it is likely that someone may ask: How can God, the Most Merciful, Who loves His creation beyond measure, will put his beloved creation to fierce punishments? The answer is that though God is most soft and lenient, He also is wrathful and mighty. Just as He is 'Rahman' and 'Rahim', so also He is 'Jabbar' and 'Qahhar'. Just as paradise is the manifestation of extreme kindness, so is the hell the manifestation of extreme anger and wrath. "0, One Whose Mercy precedes His Wrath..." is the attribute according to which He is not happy that His creation should become Unbeliever by disobeying Him and go to hell. "He is not pleased with the disbelief of His servants." But when the creation, despite knowing His displeasure, opts for the road leading to hell, He also does not prevent them forcibly because it is against His wisdom. God is absolutely independent of every or any need. He is also not in need of our faith.
FORCED REPENTANCE IS USELESS
Yet He has, on the basis of His mercy and kindness, towards His creation made true repentance the cause of protection from the above-mentioned punishments. He has kept this door open until the last breath of man. But if the creation turns away its face from this kindness also, He also does not force them to repent because a forced repentance will not be repentance at all. Doubtlessly, God is Merciful and Beneficent and it is because of it that He has ordered the creation to follow His commands and to carry out all obligatory and voluntary good deeds leading to paradise and He guided us towards it. Similarly He also commanded us to refrain from all evil, prohibited and indecent things, which take one away from God and make him near to Satan and consequently lead to hellfire. Thus it can be understood that all these religious commands and duties are due to His vast mercy and kindness. Therefore, a faithful person should also take care and he should never lag behind in fulfilling his
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religious duties. He must realize that failure to do any obligatory duty is his permanent loss, which is irreparable. In this way he will be depriving himself of divine mercy. No other thing can avert this loss.
A SHORT LIFESPAN AND PERMANENT PUNISHMENT
One more objection can also be that if an unbeliever got a lifespan of say fifty or sixty (or more) years. Then, how can it be justified that he should suffer forever endlessly in hell? The answer is: The unbeliever who, spent his entire life in disbelief had, in reality, in that very short lifespan by misusing his freedom of action, gathered such a huge and permanent evil that its essential consequence is entrance to everlasting hell. In other words, he opted for such a darkness for himself, where no ray of light can ever reach till eternity. Likewise, the faithful who left this world with piety and fear of God earned in his short life an undiminishing success, that is, he earned an inextinguishable light.
ETERNITY WILL BE BASED ON THE INTENTION
OF GOOD OR EVIL
It is mentioned in Biharul Anwar that Abu Hashim asked Imam Sadiq (a.s.) why the dwelling in paradise or hell would be permanent? The Imam (a.s.) replied, "The people of hell will live in hell forever because their intention in the world was that had they to live in the world forever they would disobey God forever. Likewise the reason of the people of paradise living therein permanently is also that their intention in the world was that if they had to live in the world forever they would always obey God and would never defy His commandments. So, it is the intention that results in the permanent residence of the people of paradise in paradise and the permanent dwelling of the people of hell in hell. Thus Allah says in the Holy Quran :
Everyone acts according to his intention.
