I will pay the penalty in Hell but I will live in the world as I wish. I will not come to this world again; therefore, I will enjoy all kinds of pleasures and commit sins. I will go to Paradise in the end anyway since I am a Muslim.

Dear Brother / Sister,

1. Allah's forgiving a person is based on the condition for him to enter the grave with belief. Those who do not enter the grave with belief (who do not die as believers) will not be forgiven by Allah. The guarantee to enter the grave with belief is not in question even for those who always worship Allah; therefore, it will be insanity to try to obtain this guarantee by committing sins. For, there is a way leading to unbelief in every sin.

As it is stated in a hadith, a black spot occurs on the heart when a person commits a sin. Those spots caused by sins will blacken the heart in the course of time and the heart will be so black that it will be impossible to brighten it with the light of belief; and as it is stated in the Quran those people will lose their ability to believe due to the stains on their hearts.

As a matter of fact, the Prophet (pbuh) stated the following:

"Verily, when the slave (of Allah) commits a sin, a black spot appears on his heart. When he refrains from it, seeks forgiveness and repents, his heart is polished clean. However, if he does not repent, it increases until it covers his entire heart. And that is the stain Allah mentions in the following verse: 'By no means! But on their hearts is the stain of the (ill) which they do.'" (Muslim, "Iman", 231; Tirmidhi, "Tafsir", 75).

2. We live in an empirical age. Let those who say they can put up with fire in Hell try and see how much they can put up with fire in this world.

It is interesting that two of my fingers have been burnt. While I was preparing toast for breakfast this morning, my hand touched the hot toaster for a second. I applied some cream but I still feel the pain. I definitely say that I would never enter fire for half an hour, twenty minutes or ten minutes or even five minutes voluntarily even if I were offered the whole world.

Those who say they can put up with fire are those who cannot imagine Hell. Man has a nature that prefers a small pleasure at hand to great pleasures in the future and that gives importance to a small trouble at hand to a terrible trouble in the future. It is very difficult for a person whose feelings outdo his mind, whose soul outdoes his spirit, whose blind feelings outdo his conscience and whose mean desires outdo his lofty desires to see the truth as it is. Such people can act heedlessly like drunkards by trying to take pleasure in accordance with the mean desires of their blind and deaf souls that do not foresee their ending despite the conscious wailings of their beliefs in the depths of their hearts.

Those who take the orders of the religion of Islam lightly probably joke - if they are believers. If a ten-year-old child says there is a monster, dragon or a highwayman waiting further down a road – though it is highly probable that the child is lying - those who proceed in that road by ignoring him will definitely feel scared. Is it possible to regard the people who do not heed the news conveyed from Allah by 124.000 prophets and 104 books as normal people?

Besides, the people who have pure conscience worship Allah not because of the love of Paradise and fear of Hell only. They regard worshipping as a debt of gratitude to their Lord, who created them out of nothing and gave them innumerable boons.

Allah states the following in sacred hadith by attracting attention to this point: "Were I not a deity worthy worshipping if I had not created Paradise and Hell?” (Ihya, 4/297-98)"

Questions on Islam