Question:
Allahﷻ gives human beings a life of about one hundred years. But if a person commits sins in that short lifetime, Allahﷻ gives punishment in the Hereafter that may last thousands, millions, or even billions of years, and in some cases even eternal punishment in Hell. Does this not appear contrary to the mercy of Allahﷻ?
Answer:
If a person lives only a short life and commits sins during that short period, why should the punishment last for such an extremely long time? Would it not be more consistent with mercy to punish him for a limited time and then end it? That is the question he says was asked by a Christian friend.
Now when answering this, the first thing we must understand is that we should not judge the matter by comparing short life and long punishment. That way of looking at it is not correct reasoning. Even in this world that is not how justice works.
Suppose there is a man who goes out one day and shoots fifty people and kills them. It may have taken him only a single day to commit the crime. Perhaps he spent only an hour or two carrying out that act. Would anyone say that because he spent only one day committing the crime, he should be punished only for one day? No one would say that. What do people look at? They look at the crime itself, not the time taken to commit it.
Imagine someone kills another person with a knife. How long does it take to commit the murder? Maybe ten minutes, perhaps even less. Would anyone say that since it took only ten minutes to commit the murder, the punishment should also last only ten minutes? Of course not. In fact, in many countries the punishment may be life imprisonment, or even capital punishment. So in the whole world no one measures punishment by the number of minutes the crime took. What matters is the nature and seriousness of the crime. That is how justice works everywhere.
So when that Christian friend asks, “A man lived only one hundred years and committed sins, so why punish him longer than that?” the question itself is based on the wrong comparison. Instead we should ask: what kind of crime did he commit? The severity of the punishment depends on the severity of the crime, not on how long it took to commit it. This principle is accepted everywhere in the world.
Now let us come to the matter of Allahﷻ ’s mercy. Not every sin leads to eternal punishment in Hell. Eternal punishment is mentioned for certain very specific crimes, such as associating partners with Allahﷻ —what Islam calls shirk. Apart from that, many other sins are punished for a limited period according to the decree of Allahﷻ . In worldly systems of law, human beings themselves decide punishments. For some crimes they say five years in prison, for others ten years, for others life imprisonment. Human beings set those limits according to their judgment. If human beings have the authority to set punishments for crimes, then surely the Creator who created humanity has the right to decide the punishment for sins committed against Him.
Allahﷻ may decree that for one type of sin the punishment will last a certain period, and for another sin a different period. But even in those cases the matter does not end there. Many people may be punished according to their sins and then eventually be admitted into Paradise. The Islamic teachings mention that even if a person has the smallest amount of faith—faith the size of a mustard seed—eventually he will be brought out of Hell and admitted into Paradise. So not everyone who enters Hell remains there forever.
And beyond all of that, there is something even greater: forgiveness. In the systems of this world, forgiveness is extremely limited. If a person commits a serious crime and says, “I am sorry,” that does not erase the punishment. But Allahﷻ says that if a person sincerely repents, He may forgive the sin entirely. If Allahﷻ forgives, then the person may not enter Hell at all. Even someone who committed many sins deserving punishment may be forgiven if Allahﷻ chooses to show mercy.
There are narrations describing how Allahﷻ will call a person privately on the Day of Judgment. Allahﷻ will ask him about the sins he committed: “Do you remember committing this sin on that day? Do you remember committing that sin?” One by one Allahﷻ will mention them. The person will admit everything. When he hears the list of his sins being recounted, he will think that he is ruined and that there is no escape for him. But then Allahﷻ will say: “When you committed these sins in the world, I concealed them from the eyes of people. Today I forgive them.” After saying that, Allahﷻ will admit him into Paradise. This shows how immense the mercy of Allahﷻ is.
There are also other ways by which people may be saved. Sometimes good deeds reduce the weight of sins. Sometimes the intercession of others becomes a means for someone to be saved. Allahﷻ may even say to someone in Paradise, “Your brother is in Hell—will you intercede for him?” When that person intercedes, Allahﷻ may release the one in Hell. Ultimately, even those who possess the smallest amount of faith will not remain in Hell forever. Allahﷻ will bring them out.
Therefore, the mercy of Allahﷻ is extremely vast. The only ones who remain eternally in Hell are those who completely reject the Creator after everything has been made clear to them. From Allahﷻ ’s perspective, denying the Creator who created you and gave you everything is the greatest of crimes.
To help understand this, consider an example. Suppose a man has a wife. He provides everything for her—food, clothing, comfort, care, and affection. He supports her in every way. Now imagine that despite all this, she brings another man into his place and gives that man the position that belongs to her husband. Would the husband accept that? Even if he might overlook many other mistakes, this act would be seen as an extremely serious betrayal. Why? Because she replaced the one who cared for her with someone else.
In a similar way, Allahﷻ created human beings from nothing. He provides everything needed for life—food, air, water, the entire system of existence. After receiving all of that, if a person turns away and worships stones, trees, or created things instead of the Creator, from Allahﷻ ’s perspective that is the gravest injustice. The punishment is not based on how long the act took but on the nature of the crime itself.
So the issue is not that a short life leads to a long punishment. Even in worldly justice systems the time taken to commit a crime is not the measure of punishment. What matters is the seriousness of the crime. In the same way, the punishments of the Hereafter are based on the nature of the deeds themselves, while at the same time the doors of mercy, forgiveness, repentance, and intercession remain wide open through the mercy of Allahﷻ .