heaven and hell

[Star]

Salam everyone

On the Day of Judgement, aside from heaven and hell, do you think there would be a 3rd place for people who never got the message of monotheism? Also what happens to people who die as children or infants? Generally they would go to heaven, but these children never had the opportunity to knowingly perform either good or bad deeds. If they had grown up, they could have been evil tyrants or prophets. They will never be able to earn the highest level of heaven because they never had the opportunity. How will these people be judged?

Also some people live a lot longer than others, so they had the opportunity to perform more good deeds, so they might end up in higher levels of Jannah than someone who didn't live as long. How is this fair?

I've heard the theory that such people will be tested on the Day of Judgement and their place in heaven or hell will be determined then.

If you take two people--one who has heard the message and one who hasn't--and compare their good deeds, the believer will have more good deeds. However the person who never got the message never got the opportunity to hear about God and do better deeds.

[Hassan A]

Salaam mia666,

You've asked some good questions. But, unfortunately, to the best of my limited knowledge and understanding I can only answer one of them.

You asked:

"On the Day of Judgement...do you think there would be a 3rd place for people who never got the message of monotheism?"

I would refer to the scenario you painted as ‘the absence of belief (or disbelief out of ignorance). This scenario is best characterized by one whom the truth (in this case the existence of Allah) has either never reached, or has not been clearly manifested to him/her, or has come to him in such a garbled and corrupt/ed form that it makes it difficult for him to recognize it as the truth. I don’t consider this state ‘disbelieve’ but rather the ‘absence of belief’; because in such state one either never encountered the truth or it has not been clearly manifested to him, hence he/she never had the option to believe or disbelieve.

To illustrate this better consider the following scenario:

Suppose there is a man on an isolated island, and has been on that island since birth. Now suppose that that man has never made contact with anyone or anything outside of that island. As such, said man would have no idea of the existence of a God, as the truth (in this case God’s existence) has never reached him nor been clearly manifested to him (seeing as how he’s on an isolated island); as such, the man would have an ‘absence of belief’ in the existence of a God. Now suppose this man dies on that island, without the truth (in this case the existence of a God) having ever reached him. Now tell me, would it not be unjust for Allah to punish him for supposedly disbelieving? Seeing as how the truth (the existence of Allah) has never reached or been clearly manifested to him; hence never having the chance to believe or disbelieve.

So, to answer you question, I firmly believe that one whom the truth of a certain matter (in this case the existence of Allah) has either never reached him or has never been clearly manifested to him cannot (in my opinion) be considered a ‘disbeliever’ and therefore would be unjust for Allah to condemn them to the hell-fire. Now personally I do not know what will happen to people in the above-mentioned scenario but I would like to think Allah (seeing as how merciful and forgiving He is) would pardon them.

By the ways, brother Joseph Islam wrote of a similar issue in the following article:

http://quransmessage.com/articles/understanding%20kufr%20FM3.htm

Hope this answers your question.

[Star]

Salam.

I've read that article before, and it cleared up a lot of things, because I have some Hindu friends and I was afraid they were all automatically disbelievers and would go to hell. Joseph showed that they're not actually disbelievers because the message never reached them. *sighs with relief*

I think people might be tested on the Day of Judgement or they may not be, but whatever it is, I think this is one of those issues we can't be sure of. Anyway God will judge us all by our circumstances. A person who has never heard of God cannot be expected to pray, so they won't be punished for not doing so. A child who died young has never done anything wrong, so there's no reason they should be punished.

I was just wondering if the Quran said anything about such people, but if there's silence on the issue then I guess we shouldn't worry about it...

[Joseph Islam]

Dear All,

As-salamu alaykum

Great thread with questions and answers.

Please see a related thread and my humble comments.

Judgement before the revelation of the Quran to the Quraish?
http://quransmessage.com/forum/index.php?topic=1393.msg6426#msg6426

Regards,
Joseph

[Star]

Salam everyone.

Brother Joseph: I think Moses was right, only God knows about these people's lives and He will judge them according to what happened in their lives. God does not do injustice.



Mariyah