Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 324
324 the life to come). Then in a state of bewilderment he would say, "O my Lord, how has all this hap- pened? I had eyes in my previous life. Why hast Thou created me blind now?" Thereupon shall God say, "Thou didst likewise forsake My word; I have now left thee to thy fate so that thou mayest be rewarded according to thy deeds. "' 158 This shows that blindness in the next life will be due to spiritual blindness in this life. Thus it is clear that though the rewards and pun- ishments of the next world will have some kind of body, yet they would be only embodiments of the actions of this life, and not anything altogether new. The details, as given in the Holy Quran, of the life of the next world also lend support to this conclusion. For instance, the Holy Quran says, that the dwellers of paradise will be given wine to drink which would purify their souls. It is clear that a material thing cannot purify the soul. Wine, therefore, here means the love of God which a man feels in this life and which will appear embodied as wine in the life to come, just as in a dream spiritual conditions appear to us in physical forms. As that wine will be an embodiment of the love of God and will not be a mate- rial thing, the drinking of it will purify the soul of man increasing thus his love of God. In short, while Islam describes the rewards and punishments of the next life as physical, it characterizes them at the same time as spiritual; and this indeed is the 158 Ta H a , 20:125-127.