Isn’t that what jcaz was pretty much saying?
That is partially what I am saying.
In Islaam, with regards to the Hereafter, we can make a judgement on actions and the results of those actions, but it is not for us to make judgements on people, even if it may seem clear where this person may end up.
And there are many obvious reasons for this. The one example, given by Lance himself, is that of forgiveness. Perhaps a person repented and then God forgave them.
Another example is that of ignorance. If a person does a bad deed, not knowing that deed is haraam (not permissible), ie. he does it out of ignorance, then Allaah does take that into account, as a person cannot be held accountable for that which they do not know.
Surely, many of these crazed suicide bombers have heard of the teachings of the Quraan and perhaps they just ignore them and “hope” Allaah will forgive them. For these people, if they were aware of the punishment, yet they felt so much despair that they ignored the command of Allaah, then it is said that those people will be in the Hellfire. Similarly, there are surely many, many of these crazed suicide bombers who are very young and completely programmed and used as pawns. Assuming these people have never seen these prohibitions of suicide, but rather, have been programmed into thinking that these are the most praiseworthy of actions, then this would be a case where Allaah would pardon these people, and Allaah is The Forgiver, The Merciful.
And both of these are general statements, based on judging an action. But we cannot judge a person and say “so and so” is definitely in the Fire, or “so and so” is definitely in Heaven, because only Allaah knows the hearts of all of us. Only Allaah knows if we have asked for forgiveness. And only Allaah knows if this request for forgiveness was sincere. And only Allaah knows if we did a sin whilst konwing it was a sin. Making an ultimate judgement on a person’s abode in the Hereafter is only for Allaah, as this is not our place based on our limited knowledge.