Will Paradise and Hell Ever Cease to Exist?

Question:  Will the Jannah/Jahannam ever end? I was thinking of this in the context of the literal meaning Allah  is the Last One. Does the Last One also means that eventually everything will cease to exist except Allah ?

Answer: Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah,

I pray this finds you in the best of health and states.

This is an excellent question, and it’s answer is based on a few considerations:

Contingent Everlastingness of Paradise and Hell

According to Sunni orthodoxy and consensus, both Paradise (janna) and the Inferno (jahannam), as well as their respective inhabitants, shall never cease to exist and are hence everlasting. There are many verses of the Qur’an that explicitly state this, and it is a point of consensus.

However, their existence, just like the existence of all of creation, is contingent and hence bound by limits such as time and space, all of which is decreed by the will of Allah Most High.

So the “everlastingness” of Paradise, the Inferno and their respective inhabitants is one that is within the realm of time — Allah Most High will continue to maintain them in existence, constantly re-creating them as such, forever.

Moreover, this is His will, and He Most High could have willed otherwise. His existence and eternality, on the other hand, is necessary and absolute.

Absolute Eternality of Allah Most High

As for Allah Most High, He is absolute and not bound by anything or any limit whatsoever. This applies to both His entity and His attributes, including His existence. So He Most High is infinite, eternal and limitless, and His perfections have no number, limit or end.

He is not bound by time or space, since both time and space are His creation, and the Creator cannot conceivably be bound by what He creates. Indeed, He is the First, the Last, the Outwardly Manifest, and the Inwardly Hidden.

He is the First, meaning He has no beginning, and He is the Last, meaning He has no end. So He is both preeternal and eternal. Yet these two attributes are in reality one and the same with respect to Him Most High, namely, He is timeless.

Indeed, Allah exists independently and necessarily, “in and of Himself”, while anything in creation that exists does so only by the will and decree of Allah. Therefore, any created thing that exists, including Paradise and Hell, is always on the “verge” of winking back into nonexistence, as it were… yet kept in existence by Allah alone.

Limitations of the Intellect

Finally, it is important to note that our intellects cannot grasp or even fathom the timelessness of the Divine, so we should not waste precious time trying to do so.

Our minds are only endowed with enough capacity to appreciate some of His attributes, or rather their associations as manifest in creation, so as to recognize the Divine and respond to His call to apply the Sacred Law, both its outward and inward, in our lives… so as to draw near to Him.

[Sources: section on theology from Ala’uddin Abidin, Hadiyya Ala’iyya; Nahlawi, Hazr wal Ibaha; and various tafsirs including Abu Suud, Irshad al-Aql al-Salim]

I hope that clarifies the issue to some extent, and Allah knows best.
wassalam
Faraz