Journey towards Final Destination

The well-known American evangelist Billy Graham (b. 1918) narrates one of his life’s experiences. Once he received an urgent message from an American statesman who wanted to meet him at the earliest. On receiving this message, Billy Graham cancelled his appointments and immediately set out to meet this man. When he arrived at the statesman’s palatial home, he was immediately taken to a room, where Billy Graham and the statesman sat on chairs facing one another. Then, in a serious tone, the statesman said to Billy Graham: “You see, I am an old man. Life has lost all meaning. I am ready to take a fateful leap into the unknown. Young man, can you give me a ray of hope?” (The Secret of Happiness, Billy Graham, 1955, p. 2)

The Quran, the preserved book of God, gives an answer to this question. According to the Quran, man is born as an eternal being, but his lifespan is divided into two parts: pre-death period and post-death period. The pre-death period is very short, and the post-death period is eternal.

This means that there is a contradiction between man’s nature which seeks fulfilment of his desires, and the world which is incapable of fulfilling man’s desires. Man, by nature, wants a world where his personality can find total fulfilment, but the present world fails to provide such fulfilment. Sir James Jeans in his book, The Mysterious Universe, has rightly pointed out this fact in these words: It appears that man has strayed into a world that was not made for him.

According to the Quran, the present earth is not a habitat for man. Man’s habitat lies in the world hereafter. According to the divine plan, man must develop his personality in the pre-death period, so that he is selected as a deserving candidate for this habitat, or Paradise, in the post-death period.

The Quran tells us that the above habitat or Paradise is perfectly equipped to fulfil all the desires of man in the utmost sense of the word.