If you read it literally, without heeding the verse, “We explain to you with metaphors”, the Quran talks about bodies made of earth, a place called hell full of fire, gardens full of all sorts of fruits and companions (houris), and a god with a hand who watches us from above…

Oh and of course barzakh (the Intermediary Realm) and Doomsday, and a day when the earth will become flat like a big tray and all the people will gather upon it…

And stars that fall and set in space, and angels holding and carrying hell, while it boils under the tray-like earth and guards who carry the people to giant scales to weigh their good deeds against their bad deeds… Would’ve thought they’d opt for electronic scales by now?!

After the mass weighing of billions and billions of people, a giant bridge will be made from the earth to the big garden called paradise going over the flames of hell… The circumference of the earth that the flames surround will be millions of kilometers long.

The chief of staff will apparently call out “follow what you idolize and deify” and everybody will begin to follow the idol they worshipped in the world. When the idol comes to the bridge it’ll fall over into the flames below, and its followers will fall after it!

Those who didn’t worship any particular idol and prostrated to Allah, on the other hand, will wait in their spots until they hear the call, “Follow the Rasul or Nabi you followed in the world”. They then will follow their Rasul or Nabi, and come to the Bridge of Sirat. Some will pass at lightning speed and some will pass limping and crawling, until they reach the gardens called paradise!

In short, this is the ‘literal’ explanation of the life awaiting us after death in the Quran.

Does the night of ascension refer to a trip where the Prophet went to space and met god?

Is salat about placing your head repeatedly in the sand?

Why has salat has been reduced to a form of exercise, and the imam to a personal trainer?

“The greatest losers among humanity are those who don’t perform prostration (sujud) and bowing (ruku) as they deserve to be performed…”

What is the true meaning of prostration? Is it to place your forehead on the ground for a really long time?

For man to come to grips with how little he knows, he first needs knowledge.

The Quran is the book of knowledge!

The Rasul of Allah (saw) is an integral and faultless inviter to the reality with revelation and universal knowledge that has become manifest in his perception.

This book of knowledge claims there is no god or godhood, only Allah!

But it is not possible for those who haven’t cleansed themselves from the idea of a deity/god to fathom this!

The Quran, from beginning to end, gives guidance to man by denouncing the concept of a deity-god.

The Quran is NUR!

It is light!

It sheds light to brains that have been left in darkness, to show them the reality!

How can the Quran be valid until Doomsday?

With outdated beliefs of celestial gods?

Or by claiming the one up there is writing the scenario?

Or by decoding the codes and metaphors he used?

The secret is hidden in the warning, “We explained all things in metaphors.”