Losing the Plot to "Allah Is Forgiving"

This same excuse — that Allah is so Forgiving — turns up from young people in particular, and no fewer than seven times in short succession: Yā Laṭīf, I don't pray, but Allah is Forgiving and Merciful, says one; I go out clubbing on Saturday nights, but Allah is Forgiving and Merciful, says another. What a way to go. Allah is indeed Forgiving and Merciful — but He is, in the same breath, severe in retribution, shadīd al-ʿiqāb, possessor of great strength, dhū quwwatin matīn, swift to seize those who anger Him, in this world and the next. A person disobeys Allah again and again while telling himself, Allah loves me — who exactly is being fooled by this?

There is the account of a man who, told half seriously that he was but a small, lonely Muslim, replied that Allah would still find him a small place in Paradise, in shāʾ Allāh. Asked whether he prayed five times a day, he admitted that he had not yet begun; thirty-five years old, he had prayed no more than twice in his life, at an ʿĪd gathering, and never otherwise; he drank like a fish and did everything else that is ḥarām, his hair already grey — and he still thought Allah had reserved the best place for him, as though Allah would simply overlook it all and forget. Pressed further, he said, nāʿūdhu billāh, worse still: that he would not mind, since he would be with Elvis in Jahannam, enjoying himself there among the popular singers of his day. Such a person has lost the plot entirely, and what follows here does not concern him — it concerns the young.

Life is very short: a limited commodity of sixty, eighty, ninety years, out of which, by one set of figures worked out somewhere — more amusing than exact, yet pointing to something real — more than forty per cent passes in sleep, another fifteen years in walking, another five in the toilet. Whatever the exact reckoning, the underlying truth is that the time available is short. The time available to worship Allah (swt), to become His good and obedient servant, and not to be misled by Shayṭān and the commanding self, al-nafs al-ammārah, is short. What is needed is knowledge, ʿilm; right practice, ʿamal; and sincerity, ikhlāṣ — nothing more complicated than this.