A Muslim, firmly, believes that Allah has distinguished the accountable creatures (the Humans and the Jinn) by granting them special gifts and providing them with innumerable bounties. In other words, Allah made them responsible for these gifts, to enjoy, maintain and invest for their benefit. So, it is natural that they are held accountable for these great gifts, and to be subject to a fair and a well-designed test, in order to be rewarded or punished accordingly. For this temporary life in which we live is, mainly, the testing period, and the eternal life is the time for rewarding or punishment.
The gifts and calamities are but hard currencies, which should be well invested during testing time, in order to gain great fruits in the eternal life. If a person exploits the gifts for the Hereafter, without forgetting his share in this life, as Allah Has commanded, he deserves great rewards. And if he preserves patience against the calamities as Allah encourages he will be rewarded too.
The difficulty of this test stems from the fact that some of the temporary present enjoinment is encountered by the delayed eternal enjoinment in the Hereafter. Therefore, the accountable creature has to, sometimes, sacrifice the pleasure, which is present but temporary, to win the pleasure, which is delayed but eternal. Furthermore, prophet Muhammad (pbuh) confirms that: “The Hell-fire is surrounded by all kinds of desires and pleasures, while Paradise is surrounded by all kinds of disfavors and aversions.”(1)
Therefore, the intelligent creature has to control his whims and exercise enough patience with obstacles and difficulties to be among the winners in the grand test. He must be ready to challenge Satan and his supporters with their tempting means represented by the temporary enjoinments. For all the pleasures of this life are lesser to Allah than a dead goat or a fly’s wing.
The accountable being, also, has to choose between the bitter truth, whose supporters are less in number and the sweet falsehood whose supporters are greater in number. However, accountability is based on the efforts one extends divided by the natural and the acquired gifts in his possession. Let us take, for example, two individuals: a person who at the end of his measurable life became a Muslim, and a person who was born as a Muslim who was privileged and long lived. Both have equal opportunity to compete for eternal felicity, if both do his best.
This life is similar to the period assigned for a school test, with some differences. The student knows the allotted time for the test, and has the right to terminate his test at any time. However, the time assigned to this life is unknown, and the one who is being tested cannot terminate his test at any time he wishes. Perhaps this is what justifies that the reward or punishment is eternal, and the smallest effort counts to decide the destiny of an accountable being.
A person may wonder about this fact, which was confirmed by the Prophet who said: “A person may do deeds of the people of Paradise while in fact, he is from the dwellers of Hellfire. Similarly, a person may do deeds of the people of Hell while, in fact, he is from the dwellers of Paradise. Verily, the deeds depend upon the last action.”(1) So, the final deed is important and sometimes it is vital.
To clarify this point let us consider this example, at a human level. Assume, that you are a teacher correcting the answers of a student, who answered most of the questions correctly, but then crossed them out and wrote a few wrong ones.
What will you do in this case? Will you give him grades on the crossed out answers or on the final answers? As is the case with all tests, there is a critical point that discriminates between those who will succeed from those who will fail.
This critical point is clearly stated in the Holy Quraan, for Allah says: {God never forgives that partners are associated with Him; but He forgives anything else to whom, He pleases. To set up partners with Allah is to devise a sin most heinous indeed}.(2) In fact, Allah is the Most-Forgiving, and Merciful in judging his creatures. He postpones their punishment and grants them countless opportunities to repent, to the very last moment.
Allah may forgive the cardinal mistakes of man as long as he does not worship anything else with Him, and may convert his punishments into rewards, but no guarantee for any one. Therefore, the accountable being should do his best to save himself from Hell and to win Paradise by doing what Allah commanded him to do, avoiding what was forbidden, and doing as many as possible of the deeds loved by God.
The reward in the Hereafter is so great that all our good deeds do not suffice to deserve them. So, the punishment in the Hereafter is great for those who show ingratitude, ignore all reminders and waste all opportunities of salvation. The Prophet (pbuh), describing Paradise said: “God says: ‘I have prepared for My pious servants things which have never been seen by an eye, or heard by an ear, or imagined by a human being,’” Concerning the least form of punishment the Prophet said: “The person who will have the least punishment from amongst the Hell people, on the day of Resurrection, will be a man under whose arch of the feet a smoldering ember will be placed, so that his brain will boil because of it.”
It is also natural that the rewards and the punishments vary greatly in size and intensity to be suitable for the different degrees of accomplishment and violation.
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