The Logic of Hell

When I was a disbeliever, I hadn’t read the Quran, or if I started reading it, I couldn’t connect because I saw so many warnings about hell and good news about heaven, so much reminder—the last reminder—of punishment and to reap the consequence of what we sow, our deeds. I wasn’t patient to read the logic of how we get trapped and to listen to the ethics of how to get out of this delusional rat race. Indeed, I needed God’s grace to see and read it differently. In the Quran it is explicitly mentioned that the Quran is the ‘last’ scripture and Mohammad is the last prophet. So, this is the last messages of warning and good news. The sheer fact that after Mohammad we have no successful religion, itself shows that the message is real and the last. So, we should take the repetitions of warning and good news seriously. It shall happen without any doubt. Only when we put aside our fallacious wishful thinking and see things as they are, and read the Quran with belief (which doesn’t come about but with the grace of God), we can handle the repetitions and constant warnings and understand them and abide with them and step in the way to purify ourselves from our hedonism, sensationalism, and turning a blind eye to the realities of the world and our own heart and soul. In the Quran, the logic of hell and heaven is mentioned clearly. There is a line—after passing that line and not coming back (repentance)—it is too “far” and too “late” to be able to stay in the presence of God (heaven). Hell is another level of purification and at the same time the consequence of going too far and transgressing too many boundaries. God is with the humble. So, the logic of hell:

“[Prophet], if you could only see their terror! There will be no escape when they are seized from a NEARBY place; they will say, ‘Now we believe in it,’ but how can they reach it from such a DISTANT PLACE–they denied it all in the past, and threw conjecture from A FAR-OFF PLACE– when a barrier has been placed between them and what they desire, just as was done with their kind before? They were deep in doubt and suspicion.” (34:51-53)