Did Hz. Ali say to a person who did not believe in the hereafter, "If the hereafter does not exist, I will not lose anything. What will you do if it exists?''

- Hz. Ali had a neighbor who did not believe. His neighbor said to him, “You believe in Allah and the hereafter. What if they do not exist?” Hz. Ali said, If the hereafter does not exist, I will not lose anything. What will you do if it exists?''
- What is the source of this narration? How should we understand its logic?

Dear Brother / Sister,

- The correct narration of the statement attributed to Hz. Ali is as follows:  

An astrologer and a doctor said, "The dead cannot be revived." (That is the hereafter does not exist). I said,  

"If what you say is true, I will not lose anything but if what I say is true, you will lose a lot.”

Fakhruddin Razi said “the poet said” for the statement above. (Razi, 17/199)

Imam Ghazali states that the statement above belongs to Abul-Ala al-Maarri. (Ihya, 4/59)

After this poem, Ghazali adds the following:

“Therefore, Hz. Ali said to some insane people who could not understand the realities,  

“If what you say is true, we will all be saved. However, if what I say is true, I will be saved but you will be destroyed.” (Ihya, ibid)

The famous tafsir scholar, Ibn Ashur quoted this poem by saying, “the poem attributed to Hz. Ali”. (Ibn Ashur, at-Tahrir wat-Tanwir, 16/114)

- The logic behind it is as follows: If the hereafter does not exist – God forbid- , a person who believes in the hereafter will not lose anything different from those who do not believe; they will all disappear together. However, if it does exist, those who do not believe will lose a lot of things because they will go to Hell.

Thus, this statement was not uttered to make those who believe in Allah and the hereafter doubt; on the contrary, it was uttered to make the believers think and use their minds better. 

The general logic of it is as follows: A sane person prefers the safest way – the way that has no probability of risk. 

- The following statement of Badiuzzaman Said Nursi indicates the same way of reasoning:

“Only one who is tired of living tries to follow a way that is 90 percent certain to lead to perdition. There is a 99 percent chance of salvation in the Prescribed Prayers, an indispensable obligation of Islam that takes only an hour to perform. There can come, at most, 1 percent of worldly harm from praying, whereas there is a 99 percent chance of harm in not obeying Islam. I wonder what excuse can be given for neglecting or ignoring the Islamic obligations, for doing so is certain to harm one both in this world and the next. How do religious and national zeal allow it?” (Tarihçe-i Hayat, p. 141)

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