— Ryoichi Mita
— Ruwwad Center
A man’s heaven and hell are not far away from him. Only a curtain intervenes between them. When Doomsday removes that curtain, every man will see that he was standing just on the edge of his heaven or hell, though the negligent man considered it something very distant. There were false leaders (mujrimun), who enjoyed an elevated position in the society of their times. They did not accept the call for Truth simply because, thereafter, their greatness would be finished. Their false pride prevented them from accepting the Truth. As a result, their followers likewise did not consider the call for Truth worth responding to. Equating the leaders with the Lord of the Universe means giving the same status to their utterances as to those of the Lord of the Universe. The Quranic commentator, Ibn Kathir, portrays them as carrying out the orders of their leaders ‘as the orders of the Lord of the Universe are carried out.’ Those who accepted the pronouncements of their leaders as if they were God’s commandments in the world, will themselves, in the Hereafter, call those leaders blameworthy, but it will be of no avail. The place where one was required to recognise and differentiate between the falsifiers and the men of Truth was the world and not the Hereafter.