(I wrote this a while back after reading some interesting articles from islamalways.com. Just some food for thought :)

"WILL ONLY MUSLIMS GO TO HEAVEN?"

By Sr Raihanaty Abdul-Jalil

A question we may be asked (a question we may even ask ourselves) is:
"Will only Muslims go to heaven? Or will non-Muslims be there too?"

While we may initially think this is a simple 'yes/no' answer, to REALLY understand, a mere 'yes' or 'no' will most certainly NOT suffice.

Before we can even begin answering the question, the first MOST important step is to actually gain some understanding on the Arabic words in the questions, namely, "Muslim". While many of us may be like, 'Yeah, offcourse I know what Muslim means; I am one after all!' but do we REALLY? For instance, did we know that Islam is in fact both a noun AND a verb? That Arabic is a very 'root driven' language; so a word like "Islam" in fact has many root words, namely: Surrender - Submission - Obedience - Sincerity - Peace; and "Islam" thus means not any ONE of those words, but rather ALL those words?

Following this, taking into consideration that in Arabic, by adding the prefix "mu" before verbs, we are doing a similar thing to adding "er" to the end of verbs in English. for eg:
-in English, someone who travels is known as a travel+er = traveller
-in Arabic, someone who 'safar's is known as a mu+safar = musafar (musafar being a traveller)

So with the VERB "Islam", someone who "Islam"s (i.e. practices Islam-surrenders and submits to God's Will, obeys God's commands with sincerity, to thus gain Peace with God, themselves and the people around them) in Arabic, is known as a mu+Islam = Muslim

So from the above, we learn that, in fact, by definition, ALL the previous prophets, from Adam to Muhammad, were "Muslims" (ie. they ALL submitted/surrendered to the Will of God). So naturally, we can understand that the true followers of those prophets during those prophets' times, are also, by definition "Muslims".

Then Muhammad (S) came; NOT with anything 'new', but rather 'reaffirming' the basic teaching of ALL the previous prophets: To surrender/submit to the Will of God, with obedience and sincerity; to thus attain True Peace.

So back to our Question; this now means that anybody could be in Paradise as long as they were doing "God's Will" and not worshipping something other than Almighty God. So the statement, "None shall enter the Paradise except Muslims" is true, only if you understand it in the above context.

But obviously, we can't judge whether a person is destined for Paradise or Hell; the key to this is what lies deep in one's heart, which only God can 'read' and judge. The most we can say is the types of beliefs and actions that would bring a person closer to either place.

So overall, yes, only "Muslims", as defined, will be in Paradise; and those who are not doing "God's Will", those worshipping others besides God, are those destined for the Hell-fire.

Which is the funny thing about being a follower of Islam; while other religions preach that if you follow them, you'll get into paradise; Islam is about the only religion that says 'following us doesn't guarantee you paradise at ALL! In fact, we can guarantee you Hell if do such and such!' Because "Muslim" isn't only a noun--an identity-- but it is an ACTION (one who does the ACTION of ISLAM). So we're always kept on our toes. Because we just don't know if we've done enough to gain God's Mercy, to finally enter Paradise...

An interesting thing I heard a convert to Islam say once related to all I've said above, (which I'll leave you with) was: "When I became a Muslim, I didn't think of it as leaving Christianity, but rather, as being a BETTER Christian, now following the true message of Jesus (PBUH)". -Yusuf Estes (a former Christian preacher).

For more, check out: www.islamalways.com