‘Drink.’ Then they will fall into Hell. The Christians will then be asked, ‘What did you worship?’ They will reply, ‘We used to worship the Messiah, the son of Allah.’ They will be told, ‘You have lied! Allah had neither a consort nor a son. What do you want?’ They will reply, ‘We want You to give us water to drink.’ They will be told, ‘Drink.’ Then they will fall in.” He then related the rest of the hadith.
Such is the condition of everyone who follows falsehood: his falsehood fails him when he needs it most. Falsehood has no reality; as its very name indicates, it is false.
When a belief neither corresponds to reality nor is true, the object of that belief is false. Likewise, when the purpose of a deed is false—as with deeds done for other than Allah or contrary to His command—the deed is rendered worthless by the falsity of its purpose. The person who performs it is harmed both by its worthlessness and by receiving the opposite of what he had hoped for. His deeds and beliefs do not simply come to nothing, counting neither for nor against him. Rather, he suffers both the loss of their benefit and the opposite of that benefit. Hence Allah Most High says:
“And he finds Allah there, who settles his account in full. And Allah is swift in reckoning.”
This, then, is the likeness of the misguided person who thinks he is rightly guided.
Section
The second kind consists of those represented by the likeness of accumulated layers of darkness. These are the people who recognized truth and guidance but preferred the darkness of falsehood and misguidance. Thus, darkness upon darkness gathered over them: the darkness of their nature, the darkness of their souls, the darkness of ignorance—since they failed to act upon their knowledge and thus became ignorant—and the darkness of following error and desire. Their condition is like that of someone in a deep sea with no shore, engulfed by a wave, above which is another wave, above which are dark clouds. He is surrounded by the darkness of the sea, the darkness of the waves, and the darkness of the clouds.
This mirrors the layers of darkness in which such a person remains, from which Allah has not brought him out into the light of faith.
These two likenesses—the mirage, which he mistook for water, the source of life, and the layers of darkness