“…and they have faith in the Hereafter” (2:4)
The other essential quality of the ‘God-fearing’ mentioned in these verses is that they believe in the ‘Aakhirah’ (the Hereafter). In Shariah terminology, ‘the Aakhirah’ refers to the eternal life which will begin after every human being has died and then they will be raised again. Along with the two doctrines of the Oneness of God (Tauheed) and of Prophethood (Risalat), this is the third doctrine which is common to all the prophets and upon which all the Shariahs are agreed.
The belief in the Aakhirah is a life-changing belief. If a person believes that this life is be all and end all, its joys the only joys, its pains the only pains, then what is to stop him from pursuing his pleasures even at the expense of causing harm to others? Even those people who generally follow the laws of the land, what is to stop them from transgressing in their private space, in their personal relationships, where there are no laws and no one to stop them? It is only the belief that one’s every word and action is being recorded, and that there will be another life after this one in which we will be held accountable for all those words and actions, that a person refrains from committing transgressions even in the darkest of night and privacy of his own home when no human being is watching him.
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