BELIEF IN THE Hereafter is not simply an abstract belief about what happens after we die. The Qur’an repeatedly brings us back to the Last Day because what we believe about our final destination shapes how we live today, the choices we make and the way we judge ourselves.
The opening ayat of Surah An-Naml offers a striking example.
More than Belief in Allah
The surah opens by describing the Qur’an as guidance for the believers, then identifies them through three characteristics:
ٱلَّذِينَ يُقِيمُونَ ٱلصَّلَوٰةَ وَيُؤْتُونَ ٱلزَّكَوٰةَ وَهُم بِٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ هُمْ يُوقِنُونَ
They establish prayer, give zakah, and are certain of the Hereafter. (an-Naml 3)
Certainty about the Hereafter appears alongside prayer and charity. It is not presented as a separate belief, detached from everyday life. It belongs alongside the actions through which iman is expressed.
The next verse presents a contrasting picture:
إِنَّ ٱلَّذِينَ لَا يُؤْمِنُونَ بِٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ زَيَّنَّا لَهُمْ أَعْمَـٰلَهُمْ فَهُمْ يَعْمَهُونَ
Indeed, those who do not believe in the Hereafter, We have made their deeds appear beautiful to them, so they wander blindly. (an-Naml 4)
The emphasis falls specifically on their rejection of the Hereafter. Allah tells us elsewhere that people can acknowledge Him as their Creator while denying the Resurrection. They may recognise that there is a ilah without accepting that they will one day stand before Him and answer for their lives.
Belief in Allah establishes His authority over our lives. Belief in the Hereafter reminds us that we will be held accountable for how we respond to that authority. It changes the question from “What do I want?” to “How will Allah judge what I have done?”
That is why certainty about the Hereafter belongs alongside prayer and zakah. It is not simply a belief to affirm. It is a conviction that should shape how we live.
When Wrongdoing Starts to Look Right
The most striking part of this verse is the description of their deeds: zuyyina lahum aʿmāluhum, their deeds have been made to appear beautiful to them.
Allah does not say that their evil deeds appear beautiful. He refers to their deeds without any qualification. From their own perspective, their actions may seem reasonable, even admirable.
This is the real danger. The deepest spiritual loss is not necessarily committing a sin while knowing it is wrong. It is reaching a point where we no longer recognise the sin for what it is.
Arrogance becomes confidence. Greed becomes ambition. Disobedience becomes personal freedom. Following our desires becomes “living my truth”.
The Qur’an describes this danger elsewhere when Allah asks about the person who has taken their own desires as a god.
أَفَرَءَيْتَ مَنِ ٱتَّخَذَ إِلَـٰهَهُۥ هَوَىٰهُ
Have you seen (O Prophet) those who have taken their own desires as their god? (al-Jathiyah 23)
A person does not have to openly reject Allah to place their desires above His guidance. It happens whenever what we want becomes the final authority, determining which commands we accept, which we ignore and which we find ways to explain away.
This does not mean that Allah makes people go astray without reason. People make choices, turn away from His guidance and persist in wrongdoing. Over time, they can become so accustomed to justifying their actions that they no longer see anything wrong with them. The Qur’an warns us that these choices have consequences.
Nor is this warning only for those who reject faith. Devout Muslims can also become too focused on justifying their actions instead of checking them against Allah’s guidance.
Lost Without Knowing It
The verse concludes: fa-hum yaʿmahūn, so they wander blindly.
Yaʿmahūn conveys more than simply failing to see. It describes wandering in confusion, without a clear direction. The person is lost, but the problem is that they do not recognise their condition.
They may be intelligent, confident and successful by worldly standards. They may have carefully reasoned explanations for their decisions. Yet none of this guarantees that they are moving in the right direction.
When we lose sight of the Hereafter, the immediate world becomes our entire frame of reference. Wealth, status, pleasure and approval begin to determine what counts as success. We judge our decisions by what benefit they bring us here and now, forgetting that our lives are moving towards a meeting with Allah.
The next verse tells us where this road leads.
أُو۟لَـٰٓئِكَ ٱلَّذِينَ لَهُمْ سُوٓءُ ٱلْعَذَابِ وَهُمْ فِى ٱلْـَٔاخِرَةِ هُمُ ٱلْأَخْسَرُونَ
It is they who will suffer a dreadful torment, and in the Hereafter they will (truly) be the greatest losers. (an-Naml 5)
Wa hum fil-akhirati humul-akhsarun, they are the greatest losers in the Hereafter. The irony is that they have spent their lives pursuing what they considered beneficial, only to discover that their judgement of success was gravely mistaken. The Day they dismissed becomes the Day on which their loss is fully exposed.
The Hereafter Changes how we Treat People
The Qur’an repeatedly connects belief in the Last Day to our conduct towards others.
For instance, Surah Al-Māʿūn begins by asking whether we have considered the one who denies the Judgment. We are shown someone who repulses the orphan, does not encourage feeding the poor, prays heedlessly and performs acts of worship to be seen by others. The passage connects denial of the Judgment with the neglect of vulnerable people and the corruption of worship itself.
Compare this with our starting ayah, where the believers establish prayer, give zakah and are certain of the Hereafter. The contrast is between two ways of living. One recognises obligations to Allah and His creation, with accountability shaping both. The other allows self-interest, neglect and the desire for recognition to take their place.
In Surah Al-Muṭaffifīn, Allah links cheating in trade to a lack of awareness about the Day of Resurrection. Why would someone steal from others or deceive a customer? On one side, it may be greed for profit, but deeper down, it reflects a disregard for accountability in the end. They are calculating what they can gain in this world while forgetting the account they will face in the next.
This is why the Qur’an keeps returning to the Hereafter. Our beliefs about the life to come have consequences for the lives we lead now.
Living with Tomorrow in Mind
The warning in an-Naml is not difficult to recognise in our own modern language.
“Allah knows my heart.”
Of course He does. The problem begins when we use this truth to shield ourselves from the demands of obedience rather than to remind ourselves that Allah knows us more completely than we know ourselves.
“I’m a good person.”
Good according to whose measure? Our own intentions, our reputation, the approval of those around us, or the guidance Allah has revealed?
We can become so attached to our image of ourselves as good people that we stop examining whether our lives reflect what Allah requires of us. One of Shayṭān’s oldest tricks is not simply to tempt us into wrongdoing, but to persuade us that what we are doing is not wrong at all.
Allah speaks of the Hereafter not merely to satisfy our curiosity about what happens after death, but to transform how we live before it. Certainty about our meeting with Allah changes our understanding of success and failure. A gain obtained through dishonesty may look like success today, while a sacrifice made for Allah may look like a loss. Neither can be judged by worldly appearances alone.
The believer does not imagine that they will never sin or misjudge a situation. Rather, they retain a standard beyond themselves. When they fall short, they have reason to repent instead of simply justifying their actions.
That is the significance of yaqīn, certainty about the Hereafter. It is the conviction that we are travelling towards a meeting with Allah, and that this meeting gives meaning to every choice we make along the way.
So the question we should return to each day is: Am I judging my life by how it looks to me now, or by how it will stand when I meet Allah?
|QUR’ANIC REFLECTION · SURAH AN-NAML 3-5|
