A Pagan Religion
Buddhism is a pagan religion, inasmuch as it worships idols. It is said that today's Buddhism has been divided into different schools, and that worship of Buddha characterizes only some of them. But even to accept Buddhism as an infallible guide—an error that all schools of Buddhism fall into—is an indication that this religion views Buddha as a god.
According to historical sources, Buddhist priests began to deify Buddha shortly after his death. Statues of him were erected everywhere, and the perverse belief gained strength that Nirvana had actually taken shape in his body and was embodied in these statues. The excessive respect that Buddhist priests paid to Buddha later turned into outright worship. Today, giant statues of him adorn every country where Buddhism is the dominant religion. In many countries from Asia to America, you can see statues and temples with Buddha's eyes painted on them—again, suggesting the message that Buddha sees everything and watches people constantly, and that they should be thinking of him every minute of their lives. Clearly, it's a completely untenable belief that someone who died thousands of years ago can still see those who believe in him, protect them, and listen to their prayers. The basic truth that Buddhists are unable to grasp is that God, Lord of all the Worlds, Who encompasses everything and knows the deepest hidden secrets of all things, created Buddha, like all human beings.
Belief in Karma
The doctrine of karma supposes that everything a person does will have its effect on him sooner or later, and will have a bearing on his so-called next incarnation. According to this belief, people are continually reborn into this world, where they must bear the consequences in that later life of what they did in a former one. Buddhism denies the existence of God and believes that karma is the unique power that governs everything.
Karma is a Sanskrit word that means "act," and refers to the law of cause and effect. According to those who believe in it, a person will experience in the future what he has done in the past, for good or ill. The past is one's former life; the future is supposed to be a new life they will begin after death. According to this belief, anyone who is poor in this life is paying with his poverty the price for evil that he committed in some former life. This superstitious belief also claims that in a later life, an evil person may be "demoted" to rebirth as an animal or even a plant.
One harmful result of believing in karma is that it teaches that present helplessness, poverty and weakness are punishments for a person's moral evils. According to this belief system, if a person is disabled, it's because he has inflicted a similar injury on someone else in a former life and therefore deserves it. This superstitious belief is the main reason why the unjust social structure of the caste system dominated India for so many centuries. (It must be remembered that karma is a Hindu idea, and Buddhism actually arose from Hinduism.) Because the caste system was based on karma, the poor, sick and disabled within India were despised and oppressed. The wealthy high-caste ruling class regarded their own privileges as natural and just.
In Islam, however, being weak is not a retribution; it is accepted as a test from God. Furthermore, other people have the very important duty of helping those who are in need. For this reason, Islam—like Judaism and Christianity, other religions based on divine revelation but that were later altered—has a very strong sense of social justice. But karma-based religions like Buddhism and Hinduism tolerate inequality and pose a great obstacle to social progress.
Karma is based on the belief in reincarnation: the idea that people come back into the world with the same spirit but in a different body. This idea of a "wheel of rebirth" supposes that every life influences a subsequent one. But this belief fails with one single question: how does this karma operate? If Buddhism doesn't accept the existence of God, then who judges a person's former life and sends him back into the world in a new body? This question has no answer! Buddhists believe that karma is a "natural law" that functions by itself, spontaneously, like gravity or thermodynamics. However, it is God Who created all natural laws. No natural law observes what people do throughout their lives, keeps an account, and judges them after death on that basis. No natural law determines, as a result of this judgment, what kind of new life a person will have and re-creates him accordingly; and no natural law imposes this process flawlessly on billions of people, much less animals. Clearly no such natural law exists, and so, neither can such a process exist.
So many people throughout the world believe in reincarnation, even though it has no logical basis, because they have no religious faith. Denying the existence of an infinite afterlife, they fear death and cling to the idea of reincarnation as a way to escape their fear. Belief in reincarnation—like belief in karma—is based in the false consolation that death is nothing to be feared, and that anyone will be able to attain his goals in a new birth.
If reincarnation can't occur on its own, as a natural law, then clearly it could exist only through a supernatural act of creation. But a look at the Qur'an tells us that reincarnation is a myth. The Book that God sent down as a guide to humanity openly declares that reincarnation is false.
Reincarnation According to Islam
As in every other matter, the Muslim point of view regarding to the philosophy of karma must be based on what God says in the Qur'an, which states there is only one birth and resurrection. Everyone lives only once on this earth, and then he dies. In verse 62: 8, our Lord gives the following command:
Death, from which you are fleeing, will certainly catch up with you. Then you will be returned to the Knower of the Unseen and the Visible and He will inform you about what you did.
A person is resurrected after death and, according to all the things he has done and the works he has performed, is rewarded with either eternal Paradise or endless Hell. That is to say, that a human being has one life in this world, and then an everlasting afterlife. God says very clearly in the Qur'an (21: 95) that after he has died, no one will return to this life: "It is ordained that no nation We have destroyed shall ever rise again." And similarly:
When death comes to one of them, he says, "My Lord, send me back again so that perhaps I may act rightly regarding the things I failed to do!" No indeed! It is just words he utters. Behind them is a barrier until the Day they are resurrected. (Qur'an, 23: 99-100)
As these verses show, one part of humanity will die in the hopes of being reborn, but at the moment of their death, it will be revealed to them that this is absolutely impossible. In another verse in the Qur'an (2: 28), God says this about the death and resurrection of human beings:
How can you reject God, when you were dead and then He gave you life, then He will make you die and then give you life again, then you will be returned to Him?
God says that every human being is dead to begin with; that is, he is created out of the basic inanimate elements of soil, water and mud. Then, God "formed and proportioned" this lifeless mass (Qur'an, 82: 7) and brought him to life. At a specific time after the individual has been brought to life, life comes to an end, and he dies. He returns to the earth and decays back into the soil, where he awaits the final resurrection. Everyone will be resurrected on the Last Day when, learning that another return to earth is not possible, he will give an account of all the actions he did in his life. In the Qur'an (44: 56-57), God says that after a human being has come into this world, he will experience only one death: "They will not taste any death there—except for the first one. He will safeguard them from the punishment of the Blazing Fire. A favor from your Lord. That is the Great Victory."
These verses make it clear that death occurs only once. No matter how much people want to overcome their fears of death and an everlasting afterlife and console themselves with false beliefs in karma and reincarnation, the reality is that they won't return to this world after they die. Everyone will die only once and, as God has willed, will have an endless life in the world to come. According to the good or the evil that individuals have done, they will either be rewarded with Paradise, or punished with Hell.
Eternally just, merciful and compassionate, God gives the perfect reward for what everyone has done. If a person seeks comfort in false beliefs because he fears death or the possibility of going to Hell, he will experience certain ruin. Anyone who has intelligent awareness, conscience, and fears in this regard must turn to God with a sincere heart if he hopes to escape the pains of Hell and attain Paradise. He must conform his life to the Qur'an, the true guide for humanity.
Never yet has being old or young, beautiful or rich been able to prevent anyone from dying; and so, no one can disregard death's reality. Whether people disregard that reality or not, it is something they can never avoid.
The throes of death come revealing the truth. That is what you were trying to evade! (Qur'an, 50: 19)
Reading these lines, you may be led to consider the closeness of death. Perhaps death is closer to you than to others; and you may die before you finish reading this book. It may come for no apparent reason, with no illness, accident or age-related cause. God will send the Angel of Death to come at the hour of your departure and take
your soul.
We must always keep this important fact in mind and never postpone making preparations for death. The Qur'an (63: 11) reminds us that "God will not give anyone more time, once their time has come." Here, God tells us that death cannot be postponed, and He speaks of the sorrow of an individual who meets it:
Give from what We have provided for you before death comes to one of you and he says, "My Lord, if only you would give me a little more time so that I would give charity and be among the righteous!" God will not give anyone more time, once their time has come. God is aware of what you do. (Qur'an, 63:10-11)
Buddhism's Misguided Belief About the
Afterlife
Buddhism's belief in karma leaves no room for belief in the eternal afterlife, Paradise or Hell. This false and perverse position —the idea that an individual returns into the world after each death, continually—conflicts with what God has revealed in the Qur'an. In The Religions of India, Edward Washburn Hopkins, a professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology, explains that Buddhism does not believe in an afterlife:
. . . The logic of his own system led Buddha into a formal and complete pessimism, which denies an after-life to the man that finds no happiness in this . . . In his talks with his questioners and disciples, he uses all means to evade direct inquiry in regard to the fate of man after death. He believed that Nirvana (extinction of lust) led to cessation of being; he did not believe in an immortal soul... What he urged repeatedly was that every one accepting the undisputed doctrine of karma or re-birth in its full extent (i.e., that for every sin here, punishment followed in the next existence), should endeavor to escape, if possible, from such an endless course of painful re-births. . .4
From some Buddhist writings, one can glean the following information on the afterlife:
Whether one is reborn in Heaven or in one of the various levels of Hell, the forms of existence in these places are transitory, as they are on earth, and are not eternal. As in Hinduism, the period of time during which . . . individuals remain in these places depends on the amount of good and evil they have done while on earth. When the prescribed time has been completed, they will return to earth again. Heaven and Hell are no more than temporary states of existence in which the individuals receive their reward for the acts they have committed while on earth.5
Buddhism teaches that there is a kind of Paradise and Hell, as a reward and punishment for what a person has done. But because this belief does not stem from a revealed religion, it contains many contradictions and illogicalities. Above all, and contrary to what God has revealed in the Qur'an, Buddhism believes that Paradise and Hell are only transitory.
Again, one of this belief's most illogical aspects is the idea that all systems in the world operate, in effect, by themselves. According to Buddhism, just as the existence of the universe and human beings is uncontrolled, so is the cycle of death and re-birth. There is no room in this belief for a Creator Who has brought into existence the world and the life upon it, together with Paradise and Hell, and rewards human beings for what they have done. However, accepting the existence of Paradise and Hell as places where reward and punishment are given, but not explaining how these realms were created, is an extremely illogical, unacceptable claim.
But who deals out the rewards and punishments? Moreover, how were these realms created? The philosophy of karma claims no account of how Paradise and Hell could have come into being without a Creator. This superstitious belief has been passed down from generation to generation, without ever being questioned or logically explained. Buddhism has no logical explanation for the existence of the universe or how it functions, nor of the origin of the flawless creative art evident in all living things. For this reason, Buddhism can never presume to be more than a mystical movement with no basis in logic, supported only by myths.
The Reality Awaiting Us in the Hereafter
The only source where we can learn the facts about life in this world and belief in the afterlife is the Qur'an, sent down as a guide for human beings and the teachings (Sunnah) of the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace).
God says in the Qur'an that life in this world is a temporary testing period for everyone, and that the afterlife is our eternal homeland. Everyone will have a reward in Paradise or Hell for all the deeds he has done over the lifetime he has spent in this world. God reveals this truth in these words (Qur'an, 6: 32):
The life of this world is nothing but a game and a diversion. The hereafter is better for those who do their duty. So will you not use your intellect?
Someone who submits to God, conforming his life to the true guide He has sent down and to the teachings of the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace), believes with all his heart that on the Last Day, he will account for all for his deeds—and will receive the reward in eternal Paradise or endless Hell. God has revealed this to humanity in the books He has sent down and the prophets He has chosen. But Buddhism is a man-made doctrine, built through hearsay on the foundation of a philosophy propounded by one single man.
Using human reasoning to change what has come from God is a serious error. Those who get their heads full of half-baked ideas about the Buddhist way and, in their desire to imitate their favorite pop musicians or film stars, start to follow Buddhism as a fad, should consider this and free themselves from their mistake.
In the Qur'an, God reveals the state of those who say there in no afterlife:
As for those who denied Our Signs and the encounter of the hereafter, their actions will come to nothing. Will they be repaid except for what they did? (Qur'an, 7: 147)
But as for those who did not believe and denied Our Signs and meeting in the hereafter, they will be summoned to the punishment (Qur'an, 30: 16).
The "repayment" and "punishment" mentioned in these verses will begin at the moment of death. Those who realize what an error they had been living during their earthly lives will feel unrepentable sorrow:
If only you could see when they are standing before the Fire and saying, "Oh! If only we could be sent back again, we would not deny the Signs of our Lord and we would be among the believers." (Qur'an, 6: 27)
If only you could see the evildoers hanging their heads in shame before their Lord: "Our Lord, we have seen and we have heard, so send us back again and we will act rightly. Truly we now have certainty." (Qur'an, 32: 12)
However much they may beg and ask for forgiveness, they will begin an afterlife full of agony from which there is no escape, much less a return. Their repentance will not be accepted, and never will their desire to return to the world be fulfilled. Though warned many times, the godless who did not believe—and bowed themselves before statues of stone and wood that they associated with God; who espoused vain philosophies only as a show to attract the interest of others; who did not fear God as they should have—will enter unending humiliation from the moment they meet the Angel of Death. Their souls will be taken with blows to their back and sides, they will be grabbed by the forelock and be thrown into Hell; this will be the beginning of their afterlife.
God will not allow them to speak, and their voices will be no louder than a whisper. (Qur'an, 20: 108) Hell will be the final place for all those godless people who exalted themselves before God, did not believe in the resurrection or the afterlife, were rebellious despite the warnings and did not lead a moral life. The people of Hell, "shackled together in chains" (Qur'an, 25: 13), will be jammed into "a sealed vault of Fire" (Qur'an, 90: 20) and live in the murk of thick black smoke. They will hear the fire gasping harshly as it seethes and find people moaning in it. Their endless pain will never be relieved, despite their entreaties, causing them indescribable anxiety.
Physically, the denizens of Hell will have a terrible appearance. They will be bound with shackles and chains, and their eyes will be downcast, darkened by debasement. A scorching wind will burn their skin, which will be continually replaced to burn yet again, as God describes in verse 4: 56, "Every time their skins are burned off, We will replace them with new skins." They will be beaten with cudgels made of iron and bound in "a chain which is seventy cubits long" (Qur'an, 69: 32). Their foreheads, sides and backs will be branded with the fire. Boiling water will be poured over their heads, and they will be wearing shirts of tar.
The Qur'an also tells about the terrible food and drink reserved for those in Hell. God announces in verse 69: 36 that they will have "no food except exuding pus" to eat—which people in this world can hardly stand. In the Hell they have entered for forgetting God and pursuing their own passions in this life, they will be made to drink boiling water mixed with pus. And because nothing will pass through their torn throats, they will not be able to swallow. In Hell, God will also make the sinners eat bitter thorny bush and zaqqum (the infernal tree):
The Tree of az-Zaqqum is the food of the wicked, seething in the belly like molten brass, as boiling water bubbles and seethes. (Qur'an, 44: 43-45)
As for those who believe in God and turn to Him, they will not be condemned to this state, but will pass through an easy accounting. Because they did not follow vain philosophies and, in order to please God and fearing the torments of Hell, lived according to the Qur'an, they will receive their eternal reward and be welcomed in Paradise, free from fear, sorrow and sadness. On that day, God says, the faces of believers will be radiant. As God says in the Qur'an (39: 71-73):
The unbelievers will be driven to Hell in companies and when they arrive there and its gates are opened its custodians will say to them, "Did Messengers from yourselves not come to you, reciting your Lord's Signs to you and warning you about meeting [Him] on this Day of yours?" They will say, "Indeed they did!" But the sentence about torment will [already] have fallen due upon the deniers of the truth. They will be told, "Enter the gates of Hell and stay there timelessly, for ever. How evil is the abode of the arrogant!" And those who heeded their Lord will be driven to the Garden in companies, and when they arrive there, finding its gates open, its custodians will say to them, "Peace be upon you! You have done well so enter it timelessly, for ever."
Everyone should take seriously God's constant warnings that the day of reckoning approaches, that "the Hour is coming without any doubt" (Qur'an, 22: 7). In another verse, God says:
Mankind's Reckoning has drawn very close to them, yet they heedlessly turn away. No fresh reminder comes to them from their Lord without their listening to it as if it was a game. (Qur'an, 21: 1-2)
On that day, the good will receive a perfect recompense for their deeds, while anyone who committed evil will wish that there were a long span of time between himself and that day. Each individual will go alone into God's presence, where he will be judged with complete fairness:
We will set up the Just Balance on the Day of Rising and no self will be wronged in any way. Even if it is no more than the weight of a grain of mustard-seed, We will bring it forth. We are sufficient as a Reckoner. (Qur'an, 21: 47)
All man-made philosophies are deceptions that alienate people from a belief in the existence of God and from His service. Buddhism's superficial understanding of morality is completely contrary to human natural pattern in many aspects. To an extent, it lets people avoid the torments of conscience that comes from having no religion and so, functions as a false source of spirituality. Believers in Buddhism console themselves with the idea that they have attained spiritual mastery by inflicting pain on themselves and denying the needs of the body. But there's one basic truth of which they take no notice: that people must realize that they are servants of God. A good deed is of any value only if it is done to consciously serve God and win His pleasure. Bridling the wishes and desires of our hearts carries great value, but only if done to win God's pleasure, and to the extent that He desires. Of those who exert this kind of effort with no view to winning His pleasure, God says that "their actions have come to nothing in the world and the hereafter." (Qur'an, 2: 217)
Buddhism's Idea of the Life of This World
Those who accept the idea of karma believe that their cycle of rebirths will never end—that they live again after every death, until they attain nirvana. And so, they assume that before them lie countless possibilities. Therefore, if someone decides to commit sin, he may think he will be able to atone for it in a later incarnation, even if his very next life is worse than his present one. An understanding founded on such an erroneous foundation cannot restrain a person from committing evil.
Attachment to this world is most people's major weakness. They believe in a perverse idea like reincarnation chiefly because they want never to give up earthly temptations. Therefore, only if someone has an accurate conception of the real nature of this worldly life can he radically alter his behavior so as to live morally.
Anyone aware of the real nature of the life of this world knows that he has been created to serve the Lord, his Protector and Helper, Who has created both him and the universe. Also, he knows that God will hold him responsible for all his thoughts, words and deeds, and that he must give an accounting to God after his death. The Lord reveals the reason for the creation of the life of this world in the Qur'an (67: 2): "He Who created death and life to test which of you is best in action. He is the Almighty, the Ever-Forgiving."
As this verse states, God has created human beings and placed them in this one life temporarily, as a test. Here, He tries us with the things that happen to us, and causes our lives to continue in order to separate believers from the unbelievers, to purify them of their sins, and to guide them to the moral values that lead to Paradise. In other words, this world is only a place of training, where we can win God's pleasure.
In the Qur'an, verse 2: 21, God reveals that He has created human beings to serve Him: "Mankind! Worship your Lord, Who created you and those before you, so that you may do your duty."
God has clearly indicated the limits that human beings may not transgress, and the kinds of behavior that will win His approval and the kinds that will not. On the basis of their behavior in the world, people will receive reward or punishment in the eternal life to come. This means that every moment we live brings us closer to either Hell or Paradise. God reminds His servants of this reality and warns them against that day in many verses of the Qur'an, including this one (59:18):
You who believe! Heed God and let each self look to what it has sent forward for Tomorrow. Heed God. God is aware of what you do.
Believers who fear God's punishment, serve only Him, obey His commands absolutely, avoid evil and act in ways that will win our Lord's pleasure. To be attached to God with strong bonds of love, fearing Him and heeding His commands and being determined to serve Him—that is the only way to gain moral superiority that a person should commit to. He would never compromise that goal, even if it conflicts with his interests. He may have a few fine moral qualities otherwise, but these will be restricted, short-lived or depend on some condition.
Buddhism also recommends good deeds, of course, but they may have no value in the sight of God. What value lies in a person's doing some good to those around him, if he is ungrateful to God, denying the existence of the One Who created him from nothing? In order for his deeds to have any value, they must be done with faith in God—with a view to gaining His approval, in awe of His glory, obedience, and with awareness of His power. For this reason, believers' superior moral character does not rest on romanticism. Their worship is continual and uninterrupted, as God has commanded in the Qur'an:
God augments those who are guided by giving them greater guidance. In your Lord's sight, right actions that are lasting are better both in reward and end result (Qur'an, 19: 76).
Everything in the heavens and earth belongs to Him, and the religion belongs to Him, firmly and for ever. So why do you fear anyone other than God? (Qur'an, 16: 52)
Wealth and sons are the embellishment of the life of this world. But, in your Lord's sight, right actions that are lasting bring a better reward and are a better basis for hope. (Qur'an, 18: 46)
People must be wary of growing attached to transient and deceptive baubles in this life, because life in this world is very short. Wealth, beauty and worldly possessions are worthless in the afterlife. The buried body will decay; time will destroy material possessions. Everyone will be brought into the presence of God to give an account. Moreover, if you ask a thirty-year-old what he has experienced up to this point, he'll say that his life has passed by very quickly. He may live another thirty or fifty years in the same way, before his life will come to an end.
In several verses, God draws our attention to the fact that the span of life in this world is short; He informs us that in the afterlife, people will openly confess this:
On the day We gather them together—when it will seem if they had tarried no more than an hour of a single day… (Qur'an, 10: 45)
On the Day the Last Hour arrives, the evildoers will swear they have not even tarried for an hour. That is the extent to which they are deceived. (Qur'an, 30: 55)
It will be very unwise for a person to be deceived by the transient attractions of this short earthly life and to pay no regard to the afterlife. The day when people will have their account to God is a reality. In the Qur'an (10: 7-8), God commands:
As for those who do not expect to meet Us and are content with the life of this world and at rest in it, and those who are heedless of Our Signs, their shelter will be the Fire because of what they earned.
But to those who are not fooled by the life of this world and choose the endless life of the world to come, God announces good news:
If anyone desires to cultivate the hereafter, We will increase him in his cultivation. If anyone desires to cultivate this world, We will give him some of it but he will have no share in the hereafter. (Qur'an, 42: 20)
Do not direct your eyes longingly to what We have given certain of them to enjoy, the flower of the life of this world, so that We can test them by it. Your Lord's provision is better and longer lasting. (Qur'an, 20: 131)
الرئيسية
Pubblicazioni
التسجيل
