“Surely those who do not expect to meet Us, who are gratified with the life of this world and content with it, and are heedless of Our signs, their abode shall be the Fire in return for their misdeeds.” [Qur’an, 10: 7-8]
Before we discuss Kufr (atheism) and Shirk (polytheism) and their effects on life, it’s essential first to understand the concepts of Tawheed (Oneness of Allah) and Akhairah (the Day of Judgment) in Islam, their nucleus standing in the faith structure, the role in defining the purpose of life, and their impact on shaping personal behavior.
Tawheed means belief in One Sovereign Being, the Creator of life and the universe, Who alone commands everything in His Kingdom. In Islam that Being is called Allah SWT. Akhairah refers to an eternal life after death commencing with accountability on the Day of Judgment by Allah SWT of every individual’s personal deeds committed during the present life. The present life span of a person is akin to a duration of examination; a duration that will end with his last breath. If he rejected the guidance provided to him by his Creator through a chain of His Messengers how to conduct his life, and thus failed the examination to which he was subjected, the opportunity for success would be irretrievably lost. Precisely, the purpose of life is to seek Allah’s pleasure by conforming to His guidelines in conducting the life. The reward for exhibiting such a behavior is eternal happiness; and a willful disobedience will result in an everlasting punishment.
In the chain of Allah’s Messengers, the Prophet Muhammad saw is the final Messenger and the Qur’an revealed to him is the final book of guidance: “…Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but he is the Messenger of Allah and the last of His prophets…” [Q, 33: 40] The truth communicated through the Qur’an provides people the opportunity to follow Allah’s Will in its well preserved original form: “… it is We Who have sent it down, and We shall preserve it.” [Q, 15: 9]. Thus, the true guidance is available for those who care to follow and the heedless people will have no excuses.
The Qur’an describes two utterly contrasting characters with the dissimilar destiny of each: “…One who had rebelled and preferred the life of the world, Hell would be his home. As for him who had feared to stand before his Lord and restrained himself from evil desires, Paradise would be his home.” [Q, 79: 37-41] Here the criterion for judging people has been plainly laid down. One kind of conduct is to transgress all bounds placed on man by his Creator in the pursuit of worldly cultivations and then face a painful torment. The other conduct is to live a disciplined life within the confines of Allah’s ordains followed by an eternal life of happiness. In the end, it is he alone who determines his own destiny.
The belief and practice of these concepts cultivate a visionary Islamic personality that puts in balance the relationships with Allah SWT, with fellow humans, and with own-self based on moral conscience, equity, and legitimate worldly pursuits. This, in turn, leads to the ultimate mission of Islam of establishing a just and peaceful society that seeks to promote human dignity, respect for life, and justice for all.
Kufr and shirk are mind distortions against the concept of Tawheed and, consequently, of akhairah. Both are offensive to human intelligence and rational thinking and defeat the very purpose these assets have been provided to achieve. They are granted to connect with the Originator of life without intermediaries and assert self-honor and dignity. The original meaning of kufr is to conceal the truth. It is also used to mean denial. In the Islamic terminology, it is used as an antonym of Iman, which means to believe or accept. Kufr, on the contrary, symbolizes refusal to believe or accept the obvious.
Kufr’s manifestations may vary in the thoughts and actions of a person. These variations continue to evolve and deviate audaciously as self- interests elusively obscure the vision. Denying, for instance, the existence of Allah SWT or His Sovereignty; recognizing Allah’s existence but still refusing to accept His rules; recognizing the divine guidance but refusing to believe in the Prophets who conveyed that guidance; differentiating among Prophets – accept some and reject others; and refusing to recognize the teachings of the Prophets are all modes of rebellion against Allah SWT, characterized as kufr in the Qur’an.
While kufr negates the very existence of Allah SWT, shirk perverts people to consider someone equal to Allah SWT in power, worship, fear, or love. Historically, this contamination in the original creed crept in stealthily with the passage of time as the quick and visible worldly benefits began to appear more appealing over the promised rewards later. Allah SWT placed the first couple on earth with His guidance. Their way of life consisted of obedience to Allah SWT and they taught their children to follow suit.
In the course of time, however, people gradually deviated from this path and began to follow various erroneous trails. They allowed the true guidance to be lost through heedlessness and even distorted it out of evil perversity. They associated with Allah swt a number of beings, human and non-human, real and imaginary, and adored them as deities. They adulterated the true knowledge of reality with all kinds of fictions, superstitions, philosophical whims, and conjectures; thereby giving rise to innumerable religions, germinating countless forms of shirk.
Obviously, all of these paths that crisscross and contradict one another cannot be right. Only one can be so, and that will be the one which is consonant with the truth and rational thinking. Since it is humanly impossible to single out that path in the web of distortions, Allah SWT has taken upon Himself to show that to those who are inspired to seek it with open eyes: “It rests with Allah alone to show you the right way, even when there are many crooked ways…” [Q, 16: 9]” Further, the Divine Justice will subject only those to scrutiny who had received the message: “….And We do not inflict punishment until We have sent a Messenger.” [Q, 17: 15]
The association of others with Allah SWT is branded as a foul contriving (see Q, 13: 33), like celestial bodies, saints and others, who are promoted as Allah’s associates, have never made such claims themselves. It’s merely a contriving of some unscrupulous individuals who, in order to establish their own control over ordinary people and usurp their earnings, have invented false gods and have misled people into becoming the devotees of those gods. This enables them to exploit people under the claim that they are the authorized or contracted representatives of those gods.
Another reason that shirk is a foul contriving is that it is an act of self-deception. For it provides one with an opportunity to fully engross oneself in worldliness and in evading moral scruples. It also provides a rationale for total permissiveness and licentiousness. When a person prefers a certain course of action, he comes forward with arguments in support of it. He does so in order to satisfy his own conscience as well as to justify his choice to others. He has recourse to a variety of contrived arguments and specious rhetoric with a view to malign the path he has rejected. It’s for this reason that it is pointed out that when the polytheists make up their minds to deny the truth, their foul contriving is made attractive to them.
Conceptually, the characterizations of both kufr and shirk encourage a person to construe that there is no permanent, credible, and sovereign authority that he could depend on and must be afraid of. He reaches the conclusion that this life is merely limited to the span of earthly existence and there is nothing beyond to worry about.
With this narrow scope of his existence and confined horizon, a person is emboldened to venture and chart out his own destiny by pursuing selfish interests for ill-defined worldly success and misplaced indulgences. This urge is a logical effect of a deeply held view that this life is the end in itself. The manifestation of such an attitude is a life-style of duplicity and contradictions, which is self-centered, hostile and harmful to one’s own long-term interests as well as those of the society.
There is no inner motivation or compelling reason for such a person to behave in a certain way or restrain himself from deviant acts because he neither has loyalty to any defined principles or code of conduct nor does he have any moral goals to achieve. Ultimately, most activities of such a person tend to be unjust, his interpersonal relations are at best cursory, and his entire life loses all its meaning.
A society that has a sizable number of people who practice kufr or shirk is gradually plagued with social and moral ills. As these problems mushroom and become uncontrollable – and, therefore, socially acceptable -, a new fragmentation of social fabric and debasement of moral foundations of that society becomes inevitable. Such problems sprout in a variety of ways. Crumbling family structure and values, children without parents, obscenity, rape, murder, suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism, mental disorder, violence, and aggression within and without to satisfy greed and lustful ambitions are just a few examples of devastating effects on the life of kufr and shirk. The promotion of unchecked materiality without a moral dimension is a recipe for self-annihilation.
In the Islamic order of life, Allah SWT alone is the focus of loyalty and obedience. A Muslim is a slave of Allah SWT before anything else, and his unqualified submission to Him is the axis of his total life. Other claims to loyalty and obedience are acceptable only insofar as they remain subservient and do not compete with those owed to Allah SWT. The Prophet saw reinforces this fundamental doctrine of Islam by saying: “There may be no obedience to any creature in disobedience to the Creator.” [Muslim, Ahmad]
Another basic principle of the Islamic order of life is obedience to the Prophet saw. No Prophet, of course, is entitled to obedience in his own right. Obedience to Prophets, however, is the only practical way of obeying Allah SWT, since they are the only authentic means by which Allah SWT communicates His injunctions to men. Hence, we can obey Allah swt only by obeying a Prophet. The Prophet saw explains this point: “Whoever obeys me, indeed obeys Allah; and whoever disobeys me, indeed disobeys Allah.” [Bukhari, Muslim, Nasai] Surely, this delegation is rooted in the Qur’an itself: “Whoever obeys the Messenger, in fact, obeys Allah and whoever turns away from him, anyhow We have not sent you (O’ Messenger) to be a guard over them.” [Q, 4: 80].
The rejection of akhairah necessarily entails the torment of Hell. The supportive argument is that those who are oblivious to accountability commit evil deeds, which can only lead to punitive consequences. This argument is corroborated by the entire record of man’s past. It is quite clear that the lives of those who do not expect accountability of their deeds; who work on the assumption that the life ends here; who measure human success or failure only in terms of material comfort or a lack of it; who under the influence of such materialistic notions do not even care to pay attention to those signs of Allah SWT which point to reality; and assume altogether a wrong direction with the result that their life is vitiated. They live a totally unbridled life and fill Allah’s earth with injustice and corruption, and ultimately end up meriting condemnation.
The argument about the Afterlife is drawn from human experience. Unless man’s character rests on the consciousness and conviction that he will have to render an account for all his deeds to his Creator, his overall conduct will fail to have a soundtrack and direction. Had affirmation of the akhairah not been in conformity with reality, and conversely, had its denial not been opposed to it, then the evil consequences flowing from the denial of the Hereafter would not have been found with such unfailing regularity. The horrific demise of each disgraced nation of the past could not be a coincidence. Since Allah SWT does not rush to judgment, the time scale for nations and their fates is in decades and centuries.
The argument that even atheists often live a life that is on the whole good and decent is nothing more than a delusion. For if one were to examine any atheistic philosophy one would not find in them any basis for a righteous behavior nor can it be established by logical reasoning that such a philosophy of life would provide any incentive to embrace virtues such as truthfulness, self-restraint, and fulfillment of obligations. Once Allah SWT and akhairah are relegated to oblivion, the only practicable course left for man is to anchor his morality in utilitarianism. The only thing this approach can teach is to maximize worldly benefits. This being the sole criterion, such a philosophy tends to make man cynical in serving his self-interest to the extent that he will not distinguish between right and wrong and will not recognize any boundaries or ethics disciplining his life. Guided solely by concerns of material interests, such people are capable of following mutually opposed views and living a life of duplicity.
Islamic Point of View 