Islam - Its Meaning for Modern Man — Page 339
339 The Quran explains that all human action leaves an impress upon the soul and that the soul when it enters upon the life to come carries the sum total of this impress with it, and reacts in that life accordingly. The record of a person’s acts and their consequences will be presented to him, as in an open book, and he will himself render an account of the manner in which he spent his life on earth and that very account will constitute his reward or his punishment. “Every man’s works have We fastened to his neck; and on the day of resurrection We shall place before him a book which he will find wide open. It will be said to him: ‘Read thy book; sufficient is thine own soul this day as a reckoner against thee. ’ He who follows the right way follows it only for the good of his own soul; and he who goes astray, goes astray only to his own loss. No bearer of burden shall bear the burden of another” (17:14 ⎯ 16). The state of the organs with which the soul will enter upon its new life will correspond to the spiritual condition of its faculties at the time of death, and their reactions to the conditions of the new life will be manifested accordingly. These reactions will be patent and irrefutable proof of the person’s conduct and actions in this life. A spiritually defective and diseased ear or eye or tongue or skin shall, through its reactions to the conditions of the new life, bear witness to the evil use to which it was put in this life.