The Warning

The Warning

1992 7 July 4 The Warning (361) Sir Winston Churchill, warning the world of the possibility of another war in 1954, said: ‘The world is roaming around the brim of hell.’

With the danger of a third world war looming large ahead of him, Churchill used the word ‘hell’ symbolically. But, to an aware believer, or to a da’i ‘hell’ is not a symbol but a fact. It is a fact that the whole world is standing at the brink of a raging hell. At any moment, it can fall into it. The danger of a third world war may be averted, but the danger of hell is so certain that no one is safe from it – except the God-fearing.

Those who are aware of the danger of a third world war are fully committed to preventing its outbreak. In a parallel situation, those who are aware of the more horrendous perils of hell must be a hundred times more active in their struggle to avoid them than the active champions of world peace are to avoid war.

The truth is that the dangers of hell are so stupendous that if man were fully aware of them, he would neither sleep at night, nor have any peace of mind during the day. His desire to warn the entire world of the impending dangers would be so intense that it would shake him like an earthquake, and he would wish that he had as many tongues to utter the warning as he had hairs on his body.

The Prophet of Islam, as we are told in the Qur’an, was always so’ restless that there was a genuine fear that he would fret himself ‘to death on account of their unbelief.’ (26:3).

Bukhari and Muslim have recorded on the authority of Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet said, ‘I hold your waist to keep you from going into the fire, since you are keen on going headlong into it.’

(Miskatal-Masabih, Vol. I, P, 53).

The more gigantic the task, the more determined activity it demands. In the eye of the believer the issue of the Hereafter being the greatest, that is the goal towards which he strives with the maximum energy.