Harsh Punishment For The Denial Of Truth
I get what you are saying but I think I can safely tell you e.g that murder/rape/torture/genocide are bigger crimes than at least theft/bribery/zina. I would argue that the fitrah that Allah has put in me points to this otherwise we wouldn’t be able to build justice systems at all if we didn’t have some sense of scaling when it comes to justice . It is also how we recognize Allah’s attribute of being Just, right? Similarly based on my above argument, I would say it doesn’t seem right to put shirk/kufr/sarkashi as bigger crimes than murder/rape/torture/genocide. Accurate scaling is up to Allah, sure but it seems to me since in crimes of shirk/kufr/sarkashi, there is no harm to the offending party (as opposed to murder/rape/torture/genocide) since Allah gets no harm nor needs compensation I don’t see why Allah would punish them more severely than those that do involves harm resulting in punishment and needs compensation for that harm. If shirk/kufr/sarkashi were just another crimes, I would agree with your argument but it seems Allah has specially singled these out and it makes you wonder why. Ghamidi Sahab does usually conclude his talks on Hell that we will eventually go to Day of Judgment and see how Allah will do justice without any fear of injustice, that we might even request Allah not to give such stern punishment for the crimes in question. And that’s my default course of action, to hope that Allah will fulfill His promise but Allah detailed the punishment of shirk/sarkashi/kufr right now in the Qur’an so it creates a concern, my aql seems to find it unacceptable based on the above argument, maybe if Allah had left out the details then maybe it wouldn’t be an issue I guess since i t is an issue that concerns Allah’s justice, which is the basis of our belief of Hereafter. I think this issue needs a satisfactory answer now rather than after death, especially since it is a major criticism of Islam for non-Muslims today.
Right but to condemn denial of truth behavior just because it leads to other crimes would be to judge someone on what they can potentially do (crimes on Earth), not based on crimes they have done, hence that would mean that Allah is judging a denier of truth based on His knowledge (of his future crimes due to denial behavior) alone. Which I don’t think He would do for people of this life, right?
Punishment in hereafter is only a warning and not a promise. I am sure Allah will be generous and merciful in His forgiveness while dealing with those who refused to acknowledge him despite knowing and refused to be part of the organization of co-creators and co-designers Allah wanted to create on Earth to make progress on His creation agenda on Earth. If someone who has gotten an advance payment against a promise to deliver something and later having consumed all the money tells me he does not recall the agreement i might forgive him but if he says he does remember the agreement and yet not willing to deliver his promise because he thinks I am very rich and the money i paid him is nothing for me and i can always hire others to get thIngs done, do you think i should forgive him and not file a case in the court? If i don’t do it what other workers who have been working hard to deliver their promise would feel about it? They might think working on the promise was not necessary. If i keep hiring new people who do not work what would you think of me? A loser? Thats why a stick and carrot system is essential to get things done no matter how rich you are.
Here’s an other point that has come to my mind: Monotheism helps us filter out good ideas from bad ones. If we make a mistake in picking up ideas to work on, all other actions will go in vain or can even cause destruction, injustice or other forms of evil on Earth. If we pick up right ideas to work on, all our resources will be spent well and help mankind progress in the right path. We can pick up right ideas to work on only with a God conscious mind. If non Muslims are doing good, they are following their monotheist nature that every child is born with. They are believer deep down in their hearts but they are not aware of their belief. If Muslims are doing wrong things, or a mixture of good and bad, despite claiming to be monotheists, they do not understand the meaning and requirements of being a monotheist. The crime of polytheism is so serious – someone is knowing and willingly spending time and other resources on evil projects totally disregarding the One who has given him the resources as a trustee to spend on good deed. This is why the punishment for polytheism is so hard. Please bear in mind the difference between shirk and a sin. Sin is when you are doing something good but end up making a mistake. Shirk is when you don’t care about good or bad, you just do what you like by fair or unfair means.