Al-Israa (The Night Journey)

18. “Whoever desires this (transient worldly) life, We hasten for him therein what We please for whomever We desire; then We appoint Hell for him into which he will enter disgraced, rejected.”

As the previous holy verses dealt with the opposition by the still-necked dissidents in face of the Divine orders and their later extermination, this verse alludes to the true causes of such a disobedience and unruliness which is brought about by the love of the world, saying:

“Whoever desires this (transient worldly) life, We hasten for him therein what We please for whomever We desire…”

It is worthy to note that the Qur’an does not say that he, who seeks after the world, will obtain what he wishes. But, it sets two conditions for it: the first refers to that He bestows upon him only part of what he wants, or, in other words, he reaches the very extent to which We will.

The second one refers to the matter that all individuals do not obtain access to this much either.

On the contrary, only some of them will be provided with access to part of the worldly goods; those people whom We deem right:

“…for whomever We desire…”

Therefore, neither do all worldly lovers attain to their wishes, nor those who have their aspirations fulfilled will reach the whole of what they desire completely.

Our daily life also explicitly unveils the truth regarding this matter. How large is the number of those people who seek after wealth day and night successively and reach nowhere, obtaining very little for their tremendous effort, and what a large number of people exist there who have great ambitions in this world and who attain a limited number of their wishes.

Here is an important point of view revealing itself in that, this group, while having been designated to burn in Hell-Fire, are also qualified with two attributes of ‘disgraced’ and ‘rejected’ which being applied in their case, each of which is separately being stressed.

The verse continues saying:

“…then We appoint Hell for him into which he will enter disgraced, rejected.”

In fact, the Hell-Fire will be their physical punishment designated, and being blamed and distanced are their spiritual punishment which are allocated for them, for one must keep in mind that Resurrection is both ‘physical’ as well as ‘spiritual’ and its reward and punishment also encompass both.