Paradise is not for Everyone

Paradise is not for Everyone

1989 3 March 5 Paradise is not for Everyone (358) “One who will have even an iota of pride will not enter heaven.”

There is nothing more contrary to the true nature of things than to worship people, places, objects and idea as if they were on a par with God. Indulging in polytheism in this way is the greatest of crimes in the eyes of God and renders one unfit to inhabit the gardens of paradise in the afterlife. Even having too much reverence for oneself – the sin of pride – will have the same catastrophic effect. The only thing which will save one is the discovery of the one God and the realization that nothing and no one can ever be His equal.

According to Abdullah ibn Masood, the Prophet was quite categorical on this subject: “One who will have even an iota of pride will not enter heaven.” When asked what was meant by pride, he said, “To ignore and reject the truth and look down upon people.” On the subject of polytheism, the Quran says, “God will not forgive those who associate other gods with Him; but He will forgive whom He will for other sins. He that associates other gods with Him is guilty of heinous sin.”

The world we live in is necessarily an imperfect one, because we are here to be tried and tested. That means that all kinds of people, inhabit the earth – the good, the bad and the indifferent. But the next life will unfold in an ideal world – that of the Hereafter – in which not the slightest flaw will be permissible. There, the only ones to attain positions of honour will be those who have proved themselves worthy in the present world of trial, in the sense that they have clearly differentiated between the true and the false. Those who indulged in pride, and made polytheism their religion, were living on an unrealistic plane. Their lives were full of falsity and illusion.

Paradise is for those sublime souls who live in the consciousness of God’s eternal greatness. Those lowly, debased creatures who are preoccupied with their own greatness, and who revere others besides God, can never enter its gates.