The first Hadith any student of the Islamic Tradition will learn is the Hadith of Mercy. In it, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ gives us the recipe for receiving the Mercy of God by saying, “Those who are merciful, the Merciful will have mercy upon them. Have mercy upon those inhabiting the Earth, and the Merciful will have mercy upon you.”
The message delivered by our Beloved ﷺ has always been described as a Message of Mercy. Every Muslim knows the verse from Surah Al-Anbiya (21:107) that tells what was the essence and sole purpose of the message entrusted to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to deliver, “And We have not sent you [O Prophet] except as a mercy to all people.” We have all heard about the numerous examples of the mercy displayed by the Beloved ﷺ to his family, his next of kin, his companions, and to children. His mercy even extended to the animals as it has come down in the tradition that he would rebuke camel owners for burdening their beasts with too much and feeding them too little. There is even a tradition of a bird crying out for her young when they were taken by one of the companions, and the Beloved ﷺ asked about who has caused the bird to grieve her young and told the companion who identified himself to return the young to their mother.
Books have been written on the mercy that Islam has brought forth, and countless lectures have been given. But surprisingly, even though the mercy of Islam has even reached animals, many Muslims have taken it upon themselves to stand in the way of this mercy from reaching anyone but themselves. Somehow, animals get this mercy, but the most ennobled creature, the human being, is to be thrown into the abyss of Hell-Fire for eternity for not arriving at the right conclusions as they had. It is really comforting to know that judgement will ultimately be with God and no one else. I really believe that the Day of Judgement will be full of surprises when it comes to who gets saved.
Given that many have heard enough about going to Hell, it is about time we talk a little bit about mercy. God has asserted His Attribute of the Merciful extensively in the Quran, and our Beloved ﷺ emphasized it as well in the Hadith. As narrated by Imam al-Bukhari, when God completed creation, i.e. set it forth in its patterns, He decreed that “My mercy has overcome my wrath”. Another authentic narration relates that a man visited the Prophet ﷺ and saw him kissing his grandson al-Hasan may God be pleased with him. The man said in amazement, “By God, O Messenger of God, certainly I have ten sons and I never kissed a single one of them.” He ﷺ responded, “The one who does not have mercy will not receive mercy.”
As this strange age we are living in moves forward, the increased literacy and ability to read various sources of information has led to many Muslims increasingly relying upon themselves to find information through Shaykh Google and Imam YouTube, and decreasingly getting connected with traditional teachers who will help them discern what is authentic in the Islamic Tradition from that which is not. As a consequence, we now have two types of Muslims. First, are ones who feel so self-righteous and have not even the slightest comprehension of what the word mercy actually means, allowing themselves to declare everyone and their dog to an eternity of damnation in Hell. Second, are those who find themselves troubled by what they come across and the rhetoric they hear from the first type. Unfortunately, for the troubled ones, the self-righteous types are quoting the Quran and Hadith in ways that seem to support what they proclaim, which confirms their doubts about mercy in Islam and denies them the ability to cultivate their love of God and ask for His love in return as they should.
Let us be honest with ourselves here and stop the Kuffar (disbelievers) rhetoric for a second. There are many Muslims, who find it incredibly troubling just from a human-to-human perspective that someone who sacrificed their entire life to serving God through serving humanity, suffered with the poor and destitute, fed the hungry, helped in healing the sick, will end up going to Hell for eternity because for whatever reason they were Christian or whatever else other than Muslim and did not have the right theology. On the other hand, unfair as it may seem and even more troubling, someone who could be the polar opposite of this saintly figure will eventually end up in Heaven just for being Muslim in spite of being one of the foulest human beings. Has all the talk about what Prophet Muhammad ﷺ being “mercy to all people” been just talk? Thinking this way means a serious misunderstanding has taken place.
God says in Surah al-Anam (6:54) that, “Your Lord has decreed it upon Himself to be Merciful”. However, the qualification for this is given in Surah an-Nisa’ (4:48) as He says, “God does not forgive the joining of partners with Him: anything less than that He forgives to whoever He wills, but anyone who joins partners with God has fabricated a tremendous sin.” What is really interesting about this verse is the one that comes right after it: “Do you see those who claim purity for themselves? No! God purifies whoever He wills: no one will be wronged by as much as the husk of a date-stone.” This is just to keep us all in check and not feel like we “deserve” anything. It is God’s reminder to those who have that inclination to sentence everyone else into oblivion that at the end of the day, it is God’s domain.
Interestingly, even polytheism has an exception in the Quran and may, in fact, be excused. This can be understood when the Quran is taken in its entirety and the verses are kept in context. In Surah al-Baqarah (2:22) God says, “Do not, knowingly, set up rivals to God.” It is this element of being made aware of what one is doing wrong that is all too important in order to establish proof against them. An example of this is in Surah al-Isra’ (17:15), where God says, “Whoever accepts guidance does so for his own good; whoever strays does so at his own peril. No soul will bear another’s burden, nor do We punish until We have sent a messenger.” There is much more to be brought forth that shows the caveats put in place for this issue of who is going to Hell. This is why it is impermissible in Islam to declare anyone in specific other than those named in the Quran or rigorously authenticated and diffusely transmitted Hadiths as a dweller of Hell in the Hereafter. In fact, it is impermissible to declare anyone to be going to Heaven either, as one of the many verses on this issue states, “He has been fully aware of you from the time He produced you from the earth and from your hiding places in your mothers’ wombs, so do not assert your own goodness: He knows best who is mindful of Him.” (53:32)
The fate of non-Muslims and whether they will definitely end up doomed for eternity troubles many Muslims because of the many wonderful non-Muslims they interact with, who might be wonderful human beings. In some cases, they might feel that the non-Muslims they know are better human beings than themselves, and so it is troubling to think of them being tortured for eternity. The question to ask here is how did they “know” that they are definitely going to Hell? From where did they get Revelation declaring them specifically to be doomed for eternity?
God has manifested many of His 99 Attributes within us. For example, when you see oppression and want justice for the oppressed, that is a manifestation of His name the Just. When you seek wisdom and recognize it, it is a manifestation of His name the All-Wise. When it comes to mercy, we are taught that God has divided mercy into 100 parts, one of them was given to this world by which ALL creation shows mercy to each other in various ways (like when a mother has mercy for her child), and 99 parts were reserved for the Day of Judgement. That mercy you feel for people is in fact an insignificant inkling in comparison to God’s Mercy. There is a Hadith where a mother had lost her child during a battle, and she was looking for him fearing the worst. When she found him, she held him close and it was one of the most powerful scenes of love and mercy the companions have seen such that they started to weep. Our Beloved ﷺ said, “Do you marvel at the mercy this mother had for her child? God is far more merciful to His servants than this mother is to her child!”
This is not to say that Hell becomes irrelevant and just a scare tactic used by God and in reality He will not go through with it. Hell is real, and there will be some who will enter it for a period of time to be purified, and others who will enter it and never leave. The point of all of this is to recognize that this matter is up to God, and anyone who forgets their place and starts making grandiose assertions about who is going where, as if they are standing at the gates of Heaven checking some list, they should remember what happened to the two brethren from the Children of Israel. One of them was a worshipping religious type, and the other was a profligate sinning type. After years of trying with his less virtuous brother, the religious one lost his patience and declared him to be doomed to Hell. At that point, both of their souls were taken and God said, “Who is this one rivaling me in my role [as Judge]? Let the religious one go to Hell and the sinner go to Heaven!” Spiritual pride is the first sin, committed by Iblīs and fallen into by many turbans and hijabs. (For those who are hyper-vigilant about the authenticity of this story, you are missing the whole point of its sound meaning)
Imam Al Ghazali said that non-Muslims can be divided into three categories:
- The first are ones who have never heard of Islam, or Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, or anything about the Final Message. Their judgement will be based on the verse, “And We were not going to punish unless We sent a messenger”.
- The second are ones who have received the Final Message, in its entirety, presented as it should, have seen it in its proper manifestation, and still rejected it. Those are considered “active” disbelievers and based on what the Quran says, if they die in that state they will end up in Hell. This is when those verses about seeking other than Islam as a religion and the like would apply.
- The third category includes non-Muslims who have heard of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and of Islam, but what they heard was a complete distortion of everything to do with Islam. They were told there was a liar who called to a false religion in the Arabian desert, where they worship a moon god, pray to a black box, oppress women, kill non-believers for their wealth and enslave non-believing women for sexual gratification and their children for free labor. In other words, they got their information about Islam through something like Fox News, and it was disgusting enough for them to not want anything to do with it. Imam Al Ghazali said about this third category that they are the same as those who have never heard anything about Islam, because in reality, given what lies they have been exposed to about it, they really have not received the Final Message
To be raised up in an a particular environment, and indoctrinated into a tradition that one grows up all their life in is a powerful thing. What a lot of Muslims do not seem to understand is that just like they believe Islam is the Truth, others such as Christians feel the very same thing about Christianity. If the finite, and insignificant in relation to God, capacity for mercy drives some Muslims to seek excuses for why someone might be a non-Muslim while recognizing their humanity, what does that say about God? Even when Heaven is described in the Quran, we are told there are many of them and only one is as vast as the whole universe. For some reason, some Muslims think of it as an exclusive club for them and their family and close friends only. It is no wonder that Muslims who think like that are usually the ones who are also quick to excommunicate some of their own Muslim brethren and send them to Hell as well. Only those who do not know what Hell is like can speak with such carelessness about humanity. Better yet, they do not even know much about God let alone Hell.
God said in a Hadith Qudsi tradition something that gives hope about His Divine Attribute of Mercy. The Arabic name for the Attribute “All-Merciful” (ar-Rahman) had the Arabic word for womb (r’h’m) derived from it. In order for a womb to take up life and accommodate a growing baby, it must expand. This whole creation came from God’s mercy. It is time more Muslims recognize this and stop constricting it so much that it results in some form of “humanity abortion”.
