The Infinitely Merciful and the Question of Hellfire
بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Introduction
Is Allah really more merciful with us than even our own mothers? How can that be possible when He created Hellfire and will cast some people into it?
The study modern pathways to doubt on Islam, , published by the Yaqeen Institute, determined that many young Muslims find it difficult to reconcile the idea of a Merciful God with the existence of hellfire. Similarly, the claim of the “New Atheists” that the very concept of tortuous damnation found within Islam and Christianity grates against our sense of justice. As a result, many Muslims today need to understand this concept in order to restore their faith and conviction in the Almighty. In this particular paper, we will not delve into the impossibility of sizing up an infinite and unseen God through the limited lens of finite human perception, nor the many writings of Muslim and Christian theologians across the centuries about reconciling God’s mercy with His punishment. This case study will focus on one famous tradition of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ regarding God’s mercy and the hellfire and will refute the claim that this tradition is counterintuitive.
‘Umar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him) narrates that a captive woman was once [frantically] searching until she suddenly found a small boy among the captives. She pulled him to her stomach and breastfed him, at which point the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to us, “Do you think this woman would throw her child into a fire?” We said, “No, O Messenger of Allah, not while she is capable of not throwing him.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Allah is certainly more merciful with His servants than this woman is with her child.”
Allah (the Majestic) describes Himself repeatedly in the Qur’an as Arḥam ar-Rāḥimeen (literally: the most merciful of those who show mercy), and says that His mercy encompasses all things. His Prophet ﷺ described Him as more merciful with His servants than a mother is with her child, and more merciful with His servant than the servant is with himself. There is no clearer, more recurring, fact in the Qur’an or Sunnah, after that of Allah being unique in His Oneness, than that He possesses unimaginable mercy and compassion. How then can this be reconciled with the fact that God would punish some people with Hellfire?
Allah must be more merciful than all since He is the One who endowed His creation with the aptitude for mercy in the first place
No mercy can outdo the mercy of Allah, since every mercy is but a manifestation of His mercy. For this reason, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728 H, may Allah bestow mercy on him) said, “Allah is more merciful with His servants than the most merciful mother is with her child, for the One who made her merciful is more merciful than her.” The Prophet ﷺ alluded to this phenomenon when asked why he was weeping for a dying infant, by saying, “These [tears] are a mercy that Allah places in the hearts of whomever He wishes.” In another hadith, the Prophet ﷺ elaborated,
Belonging to Allah are one hundred [portions of] mercy, of which He sent down a single mercy [and divided it] among the jinn, humans, animals, and insects. Because of it, they are compassionate with one another; and because of it, they are merciful with one another; and because of it, a beast is compassionate with her child – to the point that a horse lifts its hoof in fear of hurting its newborn…
How then can anyone exceed Allah in mercy, when they are all void of any mercy except that which He infused into their hearts?
A mother’s mercy is but a fraction of Allah’s universal mercy which every human being enjoys in this life
In this world, He shows immeasurable mercy universally to all people, regardless of whether they believe, disbelieve, obey, or defy Him. This universal mercy includes giving them life, supplying them with a lifetime of food, drink, cures, protection, and so much more. Every breath of oxygen, ray of sunshine, drop of rain, moment of motherly love, act of kindness, averted tragedy, is one of the observable manifestations of this mercy. As for the vast majority of His mercy, it goes unnoticed – either because it is unseen, or subtle, or lost in the abyss of human forgetfulness. In another wording of the earlier hadith, the Prophet ﷺ said,
On the day when Allah created mercy, He created mercy to be one hundred [portions]. He retained with Him ninety-nine [portions of] mercy, and divided amidst His entire creation a single mercy. If the disbeliever were to realize all the mercy that is with Allah, he would never despair of [entering] Paradise. And if the believer were to realize all the punishment that is with Allah, he would never feel secure from Hellfire.
Therefore, although people receive varying degrees of God’s mercy in their respective lives, they will all receive more mercy from Allah in this life than from anyone else – mothers included. So if Allah showed nobody mercy in the afterlife, He has already been more merciful and compassionate to humanity than their own mothers.
About The Author
