coming to his aid; the one who recites the Quran but then sleeps through it at night and fails to act on it during the day; the men and women who commit adultery; the devourer of usury; the person whose head feels too heavy to rise for the dawn prayer; those who withhold zakat; those who kindle discord among people; the tyrants; the arrogant; the ostentatious; the backbiters; and the slanderers.

Al-Saffārīnī concludes: “The atheists and heretics have denied the punishment and the bliss of the grave, relying on their reason and their senses because they do not observe any of this for themselves.”

We reply that the torment of the grave belongs to the unseen world, affirmed only by sound textual evidence; intellect and speculation have no role here. The states of the Hereafter are not to be measured by those of this life, and a person’s inability to perceive something does not prove that it does not exist. Allah knows best.