Paradise Is Not
for Everyone
Paradise is for those sublime souls who live in the consciousness of God’s greatness. One who will have even an iota of pride will not enter Heaven.
Nothing is more contrary to the true nature of things than worshipping people, places, objects, and ideas as if they were on 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 that will save man is discovering the one God and the realization that nothing and no one can ever be His equal.
According to Abdullah ibn Masood, the Prophet of Islam was quite categorical: “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” (Jami` at-Tirmidhi, Hadith No. 1999). On polytheism, the Quran says, “God will not forgive anyone for associating something with Him, while He will forgive whomever He wishes for anything besides that. Whoever ascribes partners to God is guilty of a monstrous sin.” (4:48)
The world we live in is necessarily imperfect 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. However, 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 differentiated between the true and the false. Those who indulged in pride and made polytheism their religion lived 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 preoccupied with their own greatness and revering others besides God can never enter its gates.
