Islam's Response to Contemporary Issues — Page 65
Social Peace 65 There is no life other than our present life; we shall die here and it is only here that we shall live and we shall not be raised again. (i. e. , we reject the concept of life after death or life elsewhere. ) 5 Then, again, the disbelievers mockingly address earlier Prophets as by asking them: They say, ‘When we shall have become bones and turned to dust, shall we really be raised again into a new form of creation?’ 6 They say, ‘Do you really mean to assert that when we are dead and have become mere dust and bones, shall we indeed be raised again?’ 7 This, according to the Holy Quran, is central to all evils of a materialistic society. That is why so much stress is laid on the life to come and on a Day of Reckoning. In one of the traditions, Ibn Mas‘ u d relates that the Holy Prophet sa drew a rectangle and in the middle of it he drew a line lengthwise the upper end of which portended beyond the rectangle. Across this middle line, he drew a number of short lines. He indicated that the figure represented man, the encircling rectangle was death, the middle line stood for his desires and the short lines across it were the trials and tribulations of life. He said: If one of these misses him, he falls a victim to one of the others. 8 In another tradition, death is described as the terminator of pleasure. 9