The first group consisted of people who vehemently denied the Resurrection...

The first group consisted of people who vehemently denied the Resurrection, and used to consider the existence of the hereafter as inconceivable. This can be inferred from the following verse: “The faithless say, ‘Shall we show you a man who will inform you [that] when you have been totally rent to pieces you will indeed have a new creation? He has fabricated a lie against Allah, or is there a madness in him?

Rather those who do not believe in the Hereafter languish in punishment and extreme error’.” [^6] This verse indicates that idolaters used to believe that the Resurrection is an impossible and inconceivable thing. The second group consisted of people who merely considered the existence of the Resurrection as unlikely and improbable, and thus used to refute its existence, but their denial was not at the same level as that of the first group.

The following verse can be adduced to refer to this group: “Does he promise you that when you have died and become dust and bones you will indeed be raised [from the dead]? Far-fetched, far-fetched is what you are promised! There is nothing but the life of this world: we live and we die, and we shall not be resurrected.

He is just a man who has fabricated a lie against Allah, and we will not believe in him.” [^7] The third group consists of people who held doubts and misgivings with respect to the Resurrection and thus denied its existence. The following verse can be adduced to refer to this group: “Do they comprehend the knowledge of the Hereafter? No, they are in doubt about it.

Rather, they are blind to it.” [^8] The fourth group consists of people who in their hearts believed in the Resurrection, but used to deny it out of obstinacy and stubbornness, in the same way that they used to deny monotheism and prophethood and other subsidiary tenets of religion.

The following verse can be adduced to refer to this group: “Rather they persist in defiance and aversion.” [^9] We concur with ‘Allāmah Tabātabā’ī, the author of “ Al-Mīzān ”, that polytheists used to deny the existence of the Hereafter, but do not agree with his dividing them into groups and we have comprehensively refuted his reasons in the exegesis of Sūrat al-Naba’ . Those interested can refer to it.