Internal Witness

I swear by the Day of Resurrection, and by the self-self-reproaching soul!

Does man think We shall never put his bones together again? Indeed, We can remould his very fingers!

Yet man would ever deny what is to come. ‘When will this be,’ he asks, ‘this Day of Resurrection?’

But when the sight of mortals is confounded and the moon eclipsed; when the sun and moon are brought together -- on that day man will ask: ‘Whither shall I flee?’

No, there shall be no place of refuge. For on that day all shall return to your Lord.

On that day man shall be informed of all that he has done from first to last. He shall be a witness against himself, even though he were to offer excuses.

(The Quran 75:1-14)

Every person is gifted by birth with a special faculty called al-nafs al-lawwamah, or conscience, which functions freely within him. Uninfluenced by either impulse and reasoning, it tells man what is wrong, and what is right, what should be done and what should not be done.

This conscience functions as if it were God’s court.
It warns man in advance of his errors. It tells him repeatedly what attitude or behaviour is proper and what is not. Yet in spite of this, man becomes oblivious of God. He leads his life as if, on Doomsday, he was not going to be taken to task for his words and deeds.

One who adopts such an attitude denies his own nature. His own inner self gives a warning within him, but he is not ready to listen to it. The truth is that the human conscience proclaims in advance what the divine decree will be on Doomsday. If man were to lend an ear to the voice of conscience, he would learn, prior to death, what is going to confront him in the life after death.