The Essence of Islam – Volume II — Page 288
288. Essence of Islam II. He who is blind in this world shall be blind in the hereafter and even more astray. . This means that the eyes for beholding God and the senses for discovering Him are bestowed in this life and that he upon whom they are not bestowed in this life will not find them in the hereafter. The righteous who will see. God on the Day of Judgement will carry with them the senses through which they will see Him, and he who does not hear the voice of God in this world will not hear it in the next. To recognize God as He is without any error and to obtain true understanding of His Being and attributes in this world is the source of all light. It is thus obvious that those who believe that God is subject to death and distress and misery and ignorance, and that He can become accursed and can be deprived of true purity and mercy and true knowledge, flounder in the pit of misguidance, and are unaware of true knowledge and insight which are the basis of salvation. The Christians are guilty of gross error in thinking that salvation is freely available and that good deeds are irrelevant in that context. He whom they have deified observed forty fasts. . Moses also observed fasts in Sinai. If good deeds are nothing, why did these two exalted ones pursue this vain purpose? As it is clear that God Almighty is disgusted with vice, we can understand that He is greatly pleased with virtue. In this way, virtue becomes an atonement for vice. When a person after being guilty of a vice performs a good deed that pleases God, it follows that the previous condition has been replaced by the subsequent one; otherwise, it would be disrespect. Accordingly, God the. Glorious says in the Holy Qur'ān: