Payment in cash versus payment on credit

Question: There are people who, though believing in the Hereafter, say, “Payment in cash does not equal payment on credit. Surely a cash payment is better. Give me cracked wheat in this world, and I will give you rice in the Hereafter. Give me a chicken in this world, and I will give you a goose in the Hereafter.” Is it appropriate to say so?
ANSWER
This is the devilish reasoning of atheists, who do not believe in afterlife. A Believer must not utter such statements. Becoming arrogant, they are selling their Hereafter. In fact, the world is evanescent, but the Hereafter is everlasting. Is an eternal thing swapped for a transient one? Is an eternal earthen vase of the Hereafter ever compared with a transient gold vase of this world? The purport of several pertinent âyat-i karîmas is as follows:

(Those are the people who buy worldly life in exchange for the Hereafter.) [Sûrat-ul-Baqara 86]

(What is with you [worldly possessions] runs out. But treasuries of mercy with Allah last forever.) [Sûrat-un-Nahl 96]

(What is with Allah is better.) [Sûrat-ul-Qasas 60]

(The Hereafter is better and everlasting.) [Sûrat-ul-A’lâ 17]

(The worldly life is nothing but a deceptive pleasure.) [Sûrat-u Âl-i ‘Imrân 185]

(Never let the worldly life deceive you.) [Sûrat-u Luqmân 33]

Atheists themselves do not give any credence to the statement, “Payment in cash is better than payment on credit,” either, because in trade they give one dollar in cash to earn ten dollar in the future. And when doing this, they never give up the dealing, saying, “Payment in cash is better than payment on credit.” If a doctor prohibits an atheist man from eating certain food and fruit, he immediately quits them out of fear of an imminent disease. As it is seen, atheists, too, desist from cash payment and agree to payment on credit. Every trader makes journeys for commercial purposes. So he gets tired in advance. He does all these activities in order to earn a profit and to have a rest, which will be obtained in the future. Because the ten dollars to be earned in the future is better than the one dollar on hand, if we then compare worldly pleasure in its time span with the time span in the Hereafter, then it will be revealed how wrong the reasoning of atheists is, for if a person lives 100 years or 1,000 years in this world, this 1,000 years is nothing when it is compared with the never-ending one.

Then those who believe in the life to come are as if they renounced a short period of time compared with eternity in order to attain endless blessings. Besides, if the qualities of blessings are assessed, they will judge worldly pleasures to be mixed with troubles and blurred but pleasures of the world to come to be limpid. Therefore, the saying, “Payment in cash is better than payment on credit,” is wrong.

If Believers do not accept this reasoning of the devil’s, he will again attack them with another one. He will say, “What is known for certain and seen manifestly is better than what is doubtful. The Hereafter is doubtful.” This reasoning is more unfounded than the former because certainty is better than doubt only when a thing has a similitude. Otherwise, whether the trader will turn a profit is doubtful. Similarly, whether a hunter will hunt game is doubtful, too. But it is a rational requirement to take precautions. The trader says, “If I do not trade, I will go hungry, so my loss will be great. If I trade, my fatigue will be less beside my profit.” Likewise, an ill person who will die if he or she does not undergo an operation will have an operation by enduring a variety of sufferings. In fact, his or her recovering health is doubtful, but the pain he will suffer because of operation is certain. Despite this, he or she says, “The pain of the operation is considerably less compared with death.” The following should be said to atheists, who are dubious about the life to come:

The days you should endure are a few, until you die at the very most. This, in turn, is relatively short compared with the Hereafter, eternity. It is not even a moment. If the Hereafter you doubt is nonexistent (never!), your loss in this world is a little. Because the Hereafter is a fact certain to happen, you will remain in the Fire endlessly as you do not believe in it, which is an eternal loss on your part. A person who has reason takes necessary precautions so as not to sustain an endless loss.