Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | January 31, 2021
There are some people in the world who have not bowed to God in their hearts, and their physical prostration is devoid of spirit. The Quran tells us in Chapter 68, Verse 42 that when such people are asked on the day of judgement to prostrate themselves before God, they will not be able to.
This shows that prostration is by no means a temporary, ritualistic, physical act. It is submission before the Supreme Reality, the subordination of one’s whole life to truth. Looked at in this way, prostration describes an important truth involving the whole life.
In this present world, neither individuals nor nations have submitted to the truth. They have not subordinated themselves to it. By outwardly observing a set of hollow rituals, they pretend to be in the right; they pretend to uphold justice, and to stay far from injustice and exploitation.
But such deceit is possible only in the present world of trial. With the coming of the next life, the situation will suddenly change. Forged coins can be exchanged in the market, but it is not possible to do so in a bank. So it is with the life hereafter. The possibility of presenting falsehood as truth, and unjust actions as just ones, will come to an end.
In the next life, words will reject the false meanings given to them. It will not be possible for anyone to speak of injustice as justice and of falsehood as truth. Then the difference between appearance and reality will disappear. The tongue will utter only words which conform to the truth. Then everyone will appear in their true colours and the false masks of the world they left behind will be torn away.
Having been able to justify their actions before human beings, people suppose that they have really justified themselves. But only those will be credited as good and truthful who can, on the day of reckoning, prove so before God. In the court of God, truth and falsehood will at last appear in their true light.