If thou couldst but see when they are confronted with their Lord! He will say: "Is not this the truth?" They will say: "Yea, by our Lord!" He will say: "Taste ye then the penalty, because ye rejected Faith." Al-An'am 6:30 ⧉
Tafsir:
Whenever a man denies the Truth or follows the desires of his self, it is because he does not live his life in this world on the understanding that he will be resurrected after death and made to stand before the Lord of the universe to give an account of himself in everyday life. Man has been given a certain power which he uses unhesitatingly. He has the material prop of wealth, and friends and companions on whom he relies. He has been given a brain, which he uses to think out arrogant strategies and find clever pretexts for his transgressions. The success of his initiatives deceives him; he starts placing false reliance on things other than God, and imagines that the position he enjoys today is of a perennial nature. He forgets that whatever he has been given in this world is only by way of trial and is not a matter of entitlement. This type of life is thoroughly sinful, whether led in open denial of the Hereafter or without actually uttering the words of denial. On what basis does man rush towards worldly things—thinking them his own? Man has not paid any fee for the sunlight in which he walks or for the air he breathes. No part or ingredient of the earth from which he derives the wherewithal to live has been made by him. None of the favourite things towards which he rushes can he call his own. When these things have not been created by man, should not the Lord of all these things have any right over man? The fact is that man’s very utilisation of the present world makes it only logical that he should be made to stand before his Lord on the day of reckoning.