short, finite life. His actions are confined by the bounds of the earth and the limits of this lifespan. Consequently, his calculations change, his standards differ, and he reaches false conclusions (1), for he regards resurrection as far-fetched: “Rather, man desires to go on sinning in the time ahead (5). He asks, ‘When will the Day of Resurrection be?’” [al-Qiyāma: 5–6].

This narrow and constricted worldview of the Age of Ignorance led its people to shed blood, plunder wealth, and commit highway robbery, because they did not believe in resurrection and recompense. Allah portrayed their condition in His words: “They say, ‘There is nothing beyond our worldly life, and we will not be resurrected.’ (29)” [al-Anām: 29]. As one of them said, “It is merely wombs that bring forth and earth that swallows.”

Centuries pass, and then comes the astonishing: a form of denial even greater than this emerges. We find a wholesale denial of everything beyond perceptible matter, as in atheistic Marxist communism, which believes neither in Allah Most High nor in the Last Day and describes life as nothing but matter! It holds that nothing exists beyond perceptible matter. Their atheist leader, Marx, maintains that there is no God and that life is matter! They are therefore like animals: they do not comprehend the meaning of life or the purpose for which they were created. Rather, they are lost and bewildered; if they achieve any social cohesion, it exists only beneath the fear of the law’s coercive power.

You will find this class of people among those most eager to cling to life, because they do not believe in resurrection after death. As Allah Most High says in describing the polytheists among the Jews and others: “You will surely find them the greediest of all people for life, even more than those who