Another example: one can imagine  how difficult life is in the harsh conditions of winter for the beautiful flying insects, the lovers of the beautiful flowers, and what a mercy death is for them.

The Fourth: Just as sleep is a comfort, a mercy, a rest, particularly for those afflicted by disaster and the wounded and the sick, so too is death, the elder brother of sleep,  a  pure  bounty  and  mercy  for  the  disaster-struck  and  those  who  suffer tribulations that drive them to suicide. However, as is proved decisively in many of the Words, for the people of misguidance, death is pure torment the same as life, and pure affliction, but that is outside the discussion here.

THIRD QUESTION

Where is Hell?

T h e  A n s w e r :

Say: the knowledge is with God alone.(67:26) * None knows the Unseen save God.(27:65)

According to some narrations, Hell is beneath the earth.4 As we have explained in other places, in its annual orbit the globe traces a circle around an area that in the future will accommodate the Great Gathering and Last Judgement. It means that Hell is beneath the area of its orbit. It is invisible and imperceptible because it consists of veiled, lightless fire. Within the vast stretch of space travelled by the earth many creatures are found that are invisible because they are without light. Just as the moon loses its existence when its light recedes, so we are unable to see numerous lightless globes and creatures, although they are before our eyes.

There are two Hells, the Lesser and the Greater. In the future, the Lesser will be transformed into the Greater and is like its seed; in the future it will become one of its habitations. The Lesser Hell is under the earth, that is, at the earth’s centre. It is the inside and centre of the globe. Geology informs us that in digging downwards, the heat for the most part increases one degree every thirty-three metres. That means that since half the diameter of the earth is around six thousand kilometres, the fire at the centre  is at  a temperature  of around  two  hundred  thousand  degrees,  that  is,  two hundred times hotter than fire at the circumference; this is in agreement with what is stated in Hadiths.5  The Lesser Hell performs many of the Greater Hell’s functions in this world and Intermediate Realm, and this is indicated in Hadiths. Just as in the world of the hereafter, the earth will pour its inhabitants into the arena of the resurrection within its annual orbit; so at the divine command it will hand over the Lesser Hell within it to the Greater Hell.

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4 al-‘Ajluni, Kashf al-Khafa’, i, 281; al-Hakim, al-Mustadrak, iv, 568.

5 See, Bukhari, Bad’ al-Khalq, 10; Muslim, Janna, 30; Tirmidhi, Jahannam, 7; Musnad, ii, 313.