Afterlife & Symbolism | Mufti Abu Layth

some of the descriptions of the Hellfire are super frightening like drinking boiling water I don't all any description of the afterlife is simply symbolism it's not a literal uh description and we know that because the prophet himself taught that the afterlife is something you can't conceptualize look think of it like this people Allah speaking to us about the r which is consciousness says that you know this is

something you can't entirely conceptualize or you can't entirely fathom that you know you know a small amount maybe you'll understand about Consciousness that is consciousness what do you think of the actual the actuality of the afterlife I think it's beyond true comprehension for us so all these things mentioned in the Quran are just they kind of it's imagery to motivate or to

incentivize or to intimidate because that's how these things work when you have a you see when there's when you don't have things like a police system system which the world didn't have back then and the law is not something that is easily implemented so you have to have a heightened sense of self morality now that's great and some people may just develop that but other people may not so you need

to have a greater level of threat and this is actually what you know later philosophers who studying human history had arrived at as well saying that look I actually this is how mankind works and you see Jeremy benam and other people have also discussed this that look when you can't just catch people because there's a lot of lawlessness and there's not a there there's a lack of structure in society then the threats must be heightened in order to create an

equilibrium like you can't just and when there's more structure the threats are they they they are you know on many they don't have to be they can still be quite strict on some things but on other things they will become uh less horrific because now you can catch people when they do things like when you got cameras everywhere and you've got a society where people will get caught so you don't need to now really scare people that much about oh my God you better not do because you will just

catch them if they do it anyway whereas if you're you know in certain parts of the world where you have to say well you know what you this is going to happen that's going to happen and that's the way the human psyche works yeah