A phrase we often hear is “hindsight is 20/20.” When a person looks back on past situations, their insight is crystal clear, as the reality of choices and consequences becomes fully apparent after the fact. But when looking forward to the future, a person’s insight is often cloudy and unclear, due to the general unpredictability of circumstances. For the believer, however, not only is their hindsight 20/20, but their foresight is also 20/20, due to the clear message of the Qur’an and teachings of the Prophet ﷺ. Allah ﷻ very clearly elucidates in the Qur’an how our future will unfold as time moves forward. He has told us that every soul will taste death, that we will all enter our graves, we will all be resurrected in the Hereafter, and will either enter into Paradise or the Hellfire based on what we did with our lives. Despite this, so many of us live in this world as if we will live here forever. As people will be thrown into the Hellfire, they will be asked “Did not a warner come to you?” The people will reply that a warner did come to us, but we did not listen. Everything in our world and universe will eventually vanish, while the Hereafter is real, Paradise is real, the Hellfire is real. This life is just a short period of time in which our objective is solely to please Allah ﷻ, so that we may be successful in the Hereafter.
