The Day of Judgment and the Final Abode

All praise is due to Allāh. May Allāh raise the rank of Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ and protect his nation from that which he feared for them.

The Resurrection

The Resurrection is true. It is the exiting of the dead from the graves after the reconstruction of their bodies that had been eaten by the soil. The bodies of the Prophets, the martyrs of the battlefield, and some of the Waliyys are not eaten by the soil, as confirmed by tawātur.

The first for whom the grave would split open is our Master Muḥammad ﷺ, and the people of Makkah, Madīnah, and Al-Ṭāʾif are among the first who will be resurrected.

Allāh the Exalted said:

مِنْهَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ وَفِيهَا نُعِيدُكُمْ وَمِنْهَا نُخْرِجُكُمْ تَارَةً أُخْرَىٰ

From it We created you, and into it We will return you, and from it We will bring you out once more. [Sūrat Ṭā-Hā, 55]

The Gathering

The Gathering is true. It is for the people to be gathered after the Resurrection in a place, and that would be on the transformed earth, a leveled earth which is completely flat, like a stretched skin, with neither mountains nor valleys in it. It is bigger and wider than this earth of ours, and it is white like silver.

The gathering will be of three categories. One category are people who will be fed, clothed, and riding on female camels with golden saddles, and those are the pious people. Another category will be barefoot and naked, and those are the Muslims who are major sinners. Another category will be gathered and dragged on their faces, and they are the blasphemers.

The Questioning of Allāh

The Kalām of Allāh by which He questions the slaves is His eternal attribute. It is not a letter, a sound, or a language. It is not like the speech of the creation. The slaves will understand from it the questioning about their deeds, just as the believers will see Allāh in the Hereafter without Him being a mass or having a direction.

The Questioning is the presentation of the slave’s deeds to them by Allāh speaking to the slaves in their entirety. They will understand from the speech of Allāh the questioning about what they did with the endowments that Allāh gave them. The pious believer will be pleased, and the blasphemer will not be pleased, because they will not have any good deeds in the Hereafter. Instead they would feel they are about to die from the despair.

It came in the authentic ḥadīth:

مَا مِنكم من أحَدٍ إلا سَيُكلّمُهَ رَبُّهُ يَومَ القِيامَةِ لَيسَ بَينَهُ وبَينَهُ تَرْجُمَانٌ

There is not one of you except that his Lord will speak to him on Judgment Day, and there will be no interpreter between them. [Aḥmad and Al-Tirmidhiyy]

The Scale

The Scale is true. It is like the scale of this life: it has a pole, a beam, and two pans, a pan for the good deeds and a pan for the bad deeds. The deeds will be weighed on it on Judgment Day, and Jibrīl and Mīkāʾīl are in charge of the weighing. What is weighed are the pages upon which the good and bad deeds were written.

The one whose good deeds outweigh his bad deeds will be among the saved people. The one whose good deeds and bad deeds are equal is also among the saved people, though his status is lower than the first and higher than the third. The one whose bad deeds outweigh his good deeds is under the will of Allāh: if Allāh wills, He will torture him, and if He wills, He will forgive him.

As for the blasphemer, his pan of bad deeds will be weightful and there will be no other situation, because he will not have any good deeds in the Hereafter. He had already been compensated for his good deeds in this present life.

Reward and Punishment

Reward is not a right of the obedient that is obligatory upon Allāh. It is only generosity from Him, the compensation by which Allāh rewards the believer with what pleases him in the Hereafter. Likewise, punishment is not obligatory upon Allāh to inflict upon the sinners. It is only justice from Him.

Punishment is of two types: the greater and the lesser. The greater punishment is entering Hell. The lesser punishment is everything other than that, such as the harm of the heat of the sun on Judgment Day. The sun will be unleashed on the blasphemers and they will drown in sweat. The blasphemer will say from the severity of what he suffers: “O my Lord, relieve me, even if that were by entering Hell.” He says this because the torture of the sun has overwhelmed him to the point that he cannot perceive anything worse. In reality, Hell is incomparably more severe than what he is suffering. This is the extent of his despair and the loss of his judgment on that Day.

As for the pious believers, they will be under the shade of the ʿArsh. This is the meaning of the ḥadīth:

سَبْعةٌ يُظِلُّهمُ الله في ظِلّهِ

There are seven types of people whom Allāh will shade with His shade. [Al-Bukhārī and Muslim]

Meaning: in the shade of the ʿArsh.

The Bridge

The Bridge is true. It is a wide extended bridge over Hell. All of the creation will come to it. Among them are those who will slip from it and fall into Hell, and those are the blasphemers and some of the sinful Muslims. Among them are those who will pass over it, and among those are those who pass with the speed of a lightning bolt and those who pass with the speed of a blink of an eye.

One of its edges is at the transformed earth and the other is at what is close to Paradise. Among what was narrated about its description is that it is sharper than a sword and thinner than a hair, as narrated by Muslim from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudriyy. The apparent meaning of this is not intended. Rather, the Bridge is extremely large, wide, and slippery. What is meant is that its danger is great, for the ease or difficulty of passing it is measured by the obedience and sins of the slave, and no one knows the limits of that except Allāh.

It came in the authentic ḥadīth that the deeds of the slave will make him run over the Bridge, meaning that his deeds will be the power of his stride.

The Basin

The Basin is true. It is a place in which Allāh has prepared a drink for the people of Paradise. They drink from it before entering Paradise after passing the Bridge.

For our Prophet ﷺ there is a Basin to which his nation comes exclusively. No other nation will come to it. Its length is a walking distance of a month and its width is similar. Its containers are like the number of the stars in the sky. Its drink is whiter than milk, sweeter than honey, and more fragrant than the smell of musk. Allāh has prepared for every Prophet a Basin, and the biggest of those Basins is the Basin of our Prophet ﷺ.

The Intercession

The Intercession is true. It is to ask for the good from Allāh for another. The Prophets, the practicing scholars, the martyrs, and the angels will all intercede. Our Prophet ﷺ will intercede for the major sinners of his nation. It came in the authentic ḥadīth:

شَفَاعَتِي لأَهْلِ الكبَائرِ مِن أمَّتي

My intercession is for the major sinners of my nation. [Ibn Ḥibbān]

Meaning: other than the major sinners are not in need of intercession.

For some of them the intercession will be before they enter Hell, and for some of them it will be after they enter Hell but before the time that they deserve to be tortured has passed. There will be no intercession for the blasphemers. Allāh the Exalted said:

وَلَا يَشْفَعُونَ إِلَّا لِمَنِ ارْتَضَىٰ

They will not intercede for anyone except those who are accepted by Allāh. [Sūrat al-Anbiyāʾ, 28]

Meaning: Muslims

The first one to intercede is our Prophet ﷺ.

Paradise

Paradise is true. It is obligatory to believe in it and that it is presently created, as is understood from the Qurʾān and the authentic ḥadīth. It is presently above the seventh sky, not connected to it. Its ceiling is the ʿArsh.

Its people have the appearance of their father Ādam, sixty cubits tall and seven cubits wide. They have a beautiful appearance with no facial or body hair, and they would be thirty-three years old. They will remain in it forever and will never exit from it.

The Messenger of Allāh ﷺ described it:

هِيَ وَرَبِّ الكَعْبةِ نُورٌ يَتَلأْلأُ وَرَيْحَانَةٌ تَهتَزُّ وَقَصرٌ مَشِيدٌ وَنَهرٌ مُطَّرِدٌ وَفَاكهةٌ كثيرةٌ نَضِيجَةٌ وَزَوجةٌ حَسناءُ جَميلةٌ وَحُلَلٌ كثيرةٌ في مُقَامٍ أَبَديٍّ في حَبْرَةٍ وَنَضْرَةٍ

I swear by the Lord of the Kaʿbah, it is brilliant lights and fragrant plants, and firmly structured castles and continually flowing rivers, and lots of ripe fruit and beautiful lovely wives, and lots of endowments in an everlasting abode of luxurious life. [Ibn Ḥibbān]

Hell

Hell is true. It is obligatory to believe in it and that it is presently created. It is a place Allāh has prepared for the torture of the blasphemers, a torture that never ceases. It is also prepared for some of the sinful Muslims. Its place is below the seventh earth without being connected to it.

Allāh will increase the size of the blasphemer in Hell so that he would be increased in torture, to the extent that his molar would be as large as Mount Uḥud. He will dwell in Hell forever. He will not die in it and his torture will only increase. They will have no food except from the plant of ḍarīʿ and from the tree of Zaqqūm, and their drink will be from water that has reached the extremity of heat.

Allāh the Exalted said:

إِنَّ شَجَرَتَ الزَّقُّومِ طَعَامُ الْأَثِيمِ كَالْمُهْلِ يَغْلِي فِي الْبُطُونِ كَغَلْيِ الْحَمِيمِ

Certainly the tree of Zaqqūm is the food of the sinful. Like boiling oil it boils in the bellies, like the boiling of scalding water. [Sūrat al-Dukhān, 43-46]

The Mercy of Allāh

Allāh the Exalted has mercy on the believers and the blasphemers alike in the present life. His mercy has encompassed all of them. As for the Hereafter, His mercy will be specific to the believers.

Allāh the Exalted said:

وَرَحْمَتِي وَسِعَتْ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ فَسَأَكْتُبُهَا لِلَّذِينَ يَتَّقُونَ

My mercy encompasses everything, and I will reserve it for those who have taqwā. [Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, 156]

Meaning: in the present life His mercy has encompassed every believer and blasphemer, and in the Hereafter He will specify it for those who feared shirk and all other types of blasphemy.

The signs of mercy are more than the signs of punishment. The angels are among the signs of mercy, and they are more numerous than the drops of rain and the leaves of the trees. Paradise is also among the signs of mercy, and it is thousands of times bigger than Hell.

It is confirmed from Al-Bukhārī and Al-Nasāʾiyy that Allāh said:

لَمَّا خَلَقَ اللهُ الخَلْقَ كَتَبَ في كِتَابٍ يَكتُبُهُ عَلَى نَفْسِهِ وَهُوَ مَرْفُوعٌ فَوْقَ العَرْشِ إِنَّ رَحْمَتِي تَغْلِبُ غَضَبِي

When Allāh created the creation He had a book written and promised that He would adhere to that book, and that book is elevated above the ʿArsh. Written in it is: Certainly my Mercy overcomes my Punishment. [Al-Bukhārī]

This article is part of IKF’s Ilm al-Aqīdah series, drawn from the works of the scholars of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jamāʿah.

SERIES: ʿILM AL-AQĪDAH

The Day of Judgment and the Final Abode