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Muslim Last Days
Muslim Last Days Question: Do you believe we’re in the ‘last days’? ABDUL RASHID is a member of the Ottawa Muslim community, the Christian-Muslim Dialogue and the Capital Region Interfaith Council. The Holy Qur’an mentions many attributes of the righteous. One of the first in this respect is that they “believe in the Unseen” (2:3). “Unseen” does not mean non-existence. As a Muslim scholar explains, it denotes “all those sectors or phases of reality which lie beyond the scope of human perception and cannot, therefore, be proved or disproved by scientific observation.”
The prime example of this is our Creator and the purpose of creation. Another attribute of the righteous is that they “are certain of the Hereafter” (2:4). The Islamic view is that this life is a short sojourn and death is a way station to a permanent life in the Hereafter. Belief in the life hereafter is fundamental in Islam. It is a composite belief that consists of four elements: the end of this world, resurrection of all, accountability of our deeds in the Divine court and judgment.
Our intellect and sense of fair play suggest that our short life in this world cannot be the sum total of our existence. We are moral beings with a will to act or not to act. In this physical world, neither good is always rewarded nor is evil always punished. But our sense of justice and our reason demand that death should not come to the rescue of the evil from due punishment, nor should it deprive the righteous from enjoying the fruits of good deeds. The Islamic view is that each person will ultimately be judged according to his or her conduct in this life. The Islamic belief is that all life and this world will, one day, come to an end. (81:1-3, 82:1-3, 84:1-5). There is hardly a page in the Holy Qur’an without a direct or indirect reference to this and our ultimate accountability. The Scripture is also explicit that no one knows when this will happen and that this knowledge rests solely with the Creator of the world (31:34).
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