which the unfit were ruthlessly weeded out and the fit were
permitted to flourish. Man cannot now depend on natural forces to
mould him and make him fit for the next stage. He must do the
moulding himself. He alone can make himself fit for the higher
stage, on which he is to enter. His self is not changed by natural
forces nor even by random activity. It is changed only by his moral
activity, his freely chosen and voluntarily performed actions. If,
through right actions, he has rendered himself fit for the next stage
in "the gradual ascent," he enters Jannah or paradise, as each plane of
existence must appear to someone coming from a lower one. On the
other hand, a man who is unfit, feels anguish and misery at the sight
of good things he cannot enjoy, of opportunities he cannot avail of,
of a glorious life just beyond his reach. He is in Hell. As already
stated, Heaven and Hell are not localities but states of mind.
However, as a state of mind is transitory, it is not a suitable term.
Heaven (Jannah) stands for fruition coupled with glowing hope for
the future. Hell (Jahannam) is the experience of frustration tinged
with remorse and regret. The person who permits his self to
weaken, stagnates and becomes perverted. He languishes in a state
between life and death. He does not live because life consists of
upward movement of which he is incapable: he cannot die because
remorse and frustrated desire prevent him from relinquishing his
hold on life. Both the pleasure of existence and the insensibility of
non-existence are denied him. The Qur'an says about him,
"Wherein he neither dies nor lives" (87:13). All that he can do is to
give expression to the remorse that gnaws at his vitals, "Oh! That I
had sent something beforehand for my life" (89:24). The inmates of
Jannah, on the other hand, will give expression to their happiness in
these words: "We shall not die any other than our first death"
(37:57-58). They have successfully stood the test of death and they
know that they will not be subjected to the same test again. Their
eyes dwell on new vistas of self-development and the path which
leads to them is illumined by the. Divine light "running before them
and on their right hand" (57:12). The materialists maintain: "There
is no other than life in this world. We live and die and nothing
destroys us but time" (45:24). The Qur'an, however, tells us that we
can rise much higher above the plane of earth-rootedness and "pass
out of the confines of the heavens and earth" (55:33), provided we
develop the powers that are latent in us. These two views are in
Islam: A Challenge to Religion 172