The preceding verses repeatedly tested their claim to faith. Now it is the claim to salvation that is put to the test: is the home of the Hereafter also a privilege reserved for them?

“Exclusively, apart from other people”; reserved for you, to the exclusion of others.

“Exclusive” expresses a claim that goes beyond hope for salvation. It is a claim to sole entitlement, as though the Hereafter with The God had been registered in one group’s name and everyone else excluded. The same thinking appeared earlier in Al-Baqarah 2:80 in the claim “The Fire will not touch us except for a few numbered days,” and reappears in Al-Baqarah 2:111 as “None will enter Paradise unless they are Jews or Christians.” Ethnic and religious identity takes the place of faith and action and becomes a guarantee of salvation.

The Qur’an confronts this assurance with a brief test:

“Then wish for death, if you are truthful”; if your claim is true, wish for death.

“Wish” concerns a desire of the heart. The verse does not call on anyone to kill themselves; it exposes the claim’s internal contradiction. If you truly believe that the Hereafter with The God belongs exclusively to you, death should be the route to the very home of which you consider yourselves the unrivaled heirs. Why, then, is even the wish to reach it absent?

The next verse draws the curtain back further: “Because of what their hands have sent ahead.” The issue is not merely the natural fear of dying; it is deeds incompatible with the claim of assured salvation.

This question does not remain confined to the Children of Israel. We too speak of Paradise, mercy, intercession, and salvation, and sometimes understand belonging to our community, denomination, or tradition as though this affiliation alone were enough for our future. But if we understand the Hereafter as a return to our Lord, what is our relationship with that return?

Do we look forward with hope to meeting our Lord, or do we dread it?

The natural fear of death, of separation from family, and of the unknown ahead is not a sign of faithlessness. But if the object of our dread is the Lord Himself, another question arises: where did this image enter our faith from?

In part of the religious inheritance after the Qur’an, the language of preaching, intimidation, certain reports, and theological and legal formulations has emphasized punishment so strongly that the relationship with Him has sometimes been built more on terror than on trust and mercy. The God whom the Qur’an repeatedly introduces through mercy may become, in the believer’s mind, a judge whose encounter brings only anxiety.

Even mindful guarding (taqwa) has often been translated merely as “fear of God,” although this word’s range is far broader than fear and concerns care, self-restraint, and placing oneself within the protection of truth. For a separate study of this concept, see Taqwa in the Qur’an.

Faith is not merely accepting the existence of The God either. The root ʾ M N is connected with security, trust, and assurance. Faith should build a kind of trust in our relationship with the one true deity: a trust that does not remove responsibility and accountability, but does not turn Him into a being before whose encounter the servant can only tremble.

In Al-Kahf 18:110, the Qur’an uses another expression:

“Whoever hopes to meet their Lord, let them do righteous work.”

Whoever hopes to meet their Lord should do righteous deeds.

In this image, meeting the Lord is a hope, but a hope accompanied by righteous action. There is neither the false security of saying that Paradise belongs only to us, nor a terror that empties the Lord of mercy.

Verse 2:94 does not use the word “meeting,” but it places death directly against the claim to ownership of the Hereafter. Someone who imagines the Hereafter with Him to be their exclusive possession must ask themselves why they do not want the path leading to it.

This question remains for us too. If we feel more dread than hope about meeting our Lord, perhaps we need to measure against the Qur’an not only our deeds, but also the image we have formed of Him in our minds.

The Hereafter is not the property of any people or denomination. Faith is not a title deed to Paradise either; it is trust in The God and preparing oneself to return to Him. Whoever hopes to meet their Lord demonstrates that hope through righteous action, not by excluding others from the Lord’s mercy.

• Al-Baqarah 2:80— The claim that the Fire will touch them only for a few numbered days.
• Al-Baqarah 2:91, 92, 93— Challenging the claim to faith before testing the claim to salvation.
• Al-Baqarah 2:95— The reason for not wishing for death: “because of what their hands have sent ahead.”
• Al-Baqarah 2:96— The intensity of attachment to life.
• Al-Baqarah 2:111— The claim to exclusive entry into Paradise.
• Al-Jumu‘ah 62:6–7— The same test applied to the claim of being The God’s special allies.
• Al-Kahf 18:110— Hope of meeting one’s Lord and its connection with righteous action.
• Taqwa in the Qur’an— The meaning of mindful guarding and how it differs from reduction to “fear of God.”