Why the World is not Enough

By Iftikhar Ahmad

Why the World Is Not Enough

Discover the ultimate meaning behind life, justice, and the human conscience.

We live in a world of breathtaking beauty—and unbearable injustice. A child cries "Unfair!" while empires crumble and courtrooms remain silent. Why do the cruel prosper while the kind suffer? Why does life's ledger never truly balance?

This universal ache is not a flaw—it is a clue.

In Why the World Is Not Enough, Iftikhar Ahmad takes you on a profound philosophical and spiritual journey to explore life's deepest questions. This is not blind faith—it is a rational, moral roadmap to understanding the necessity of ultimate accountability.

Inside, you will discover:

• The Rational Proof: How the structure of the cosmos and the logic of cause-and-effect demand a final reckoning.
• The Echo in Conscience: Why your innate sense of justice is the strongest argument for the fulfillment of ultimate justice.
• The Convergence of Faith & Reason: From Kant to the Qur'an, Plato to modern science, all evidence points toward the same truth.
• A Life of Purpose: How living with awareness of eternal accountability transforms everyday choices into lasting significance.

For seekers of truth, philosophers, spiritual readers, and anyone who has felt the sacred insufficiency of this world—your longing for justice and meaning is real.

Explore morality, justice, and the ultimate purpose of life in a book that bridges reason, faith, and conscience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iftikhar Ahmad
• Release date: Nov 10, 2025
• ISBN: 9798232614447

Book preview

​Dedication

To those who still believe that truth has a destination —

that justice is not an illusion but an unfinished promise.

To the thinkers, dreamers, and questioners

who look at a broken world and whisper,

There must be more than this.

To every soul that ever felt the ache of unfairness,

the silence of unanswered prayers,

and yet continued to hope —

not because proof was given,

but because conscience would not let go.

To all who live gently, judge wisely,

and act as if eternity were watching —

this book is for you.

It is written in gratitude to those before us

The carriers of the torch of moral clarity

through centuries of darkness,

and for those yet to come

who will rebuild faith in the unseen

through the strength of reason and compassion.

​Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Prologue — The Unfinished Case

Chapter 1 —The Cry That Will Not Be Silenced

Chapter 2 —The Universe’s Unbreakable Ledger

Chapter 3 — The Rational Necessity of the Hereafter

Chapter 4 — The Echo in Revelation

Chapter 5 — The Gravity of Choice

Chapter 6 — Living in the Light of Accountability

Chapter 7 — The Equilibrium Within

Chapter 8 — The Day of Absolute Justice

Epilogue — The First Day

Supplement:1 The Primal Memory: Why We Are Exiles Here

Supplement 2: The Self-Contradiction of a Godless Cosmos

Supplement 3: Paradise: The Eternal Abode

Bibliography

Appendix A — Glossary of Key Concepts

Appendix B — The Universal Call of Justice

Appendix C — Notes and References

About the Author

Preface

Every generation inherits a question it cannot ignore:

If justice is real, why does the world so often fail to deliver it?

From the first cry of an innocent wronged to the last breath of a forgotten saint, the human heart keeps appealing to an unseen Court. Empires rise, laws evolve, and philosophies refine their arguments — yet the gap between moral worth and worldly outcome persists. This book begins in that gap. It asks, not in bitterness but in clarity: Can a universe that begins in wisdom end in injustice?

The following pages are not written to win a debate, but to clarify a conviction — that the moral order glimpsed within human conscience implies the moral completion of all things. The purpose is not merely to argue for a belief, but to show that a Day of Absolute Justice is not only a matter of faith, but of reason’s own demand for coherence. The world, as we know it, is too incomplete to be final.

An Intellectually Respectful Inquiry

This work aims to serve minds that seek understanding rather than triumph. It is composed in a spirit of advisory reflection — firm in reasoning, gentle in tone. No polemics are employed; no tradition is dismissed. Instead, the argument is allowed to unfold as an act of intellectual respect, where reason and reverence meet in quiet conversation.

The structure of the book reflects this purpose. It begins by exposing the limits of worldly justice — moral, social, and psychological — and gradually ascends to the realization that only a transcendent moral order can resolve the contradictions of history. Each chapter serves as a rung in that ascent, preparing the reader for the culminating vision of equilibrium that no earthly power can overturn.

Sources and Scriptural Translations

Although the core reasoning is philosophical, the book draws insight from revelation — primarily the Qur’an, but also from the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and other timeless texts. These are not invoked to preach a creed, but to show how humanity’s conscience, across civilizations, has intuited a final reckoning beyond the dust of history.

Qur’anic quotations follow Sahih International unless otherwise noted.

Hadith citations are taken from the English translations of Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari.

Biblical and Eastern references are drawn from public-domain or credited translations, listed in Notes and References.

Where translations differ, the wording nearest in meaning to the discussion has been adopted, without altering the essence of the original text. All key terms of Islamic thought — such as fitrah (the innate moral disposition) and akhirah (the Hereafter) — are briefly explained at first use and included in the Glossary for convenience.

An Inclusive Voice

Though inspired by Islamic metaphysics, the book addresses every human being who senses that moral truth must outlast material circumstance. Faith here is not presented as boundary, but as bridge — between reasoning and reverence, between conscience and cosmos. Interfaith references are used to honor all quests for moral meaning, and to show that the call to accountability is not a slogan of religion but a pulse of humanity itself.

The tone throughout is meant to facilitate dignified learning: patient, reflective, and free of polemical heat. Argument yields to insight; persuasion gives way to illumination. The intent is to awaken conscience, not to conquer opinion.

Final Word

If the book succeeds, it will not be by providing new information, but by helping the reader remember what the heart already knows: that justice cannot perish in a moral universe. What appears unresolved in time will find its balance beyond time.

All errors of interpretation, surely unintentional, remain my own; all clarity belongs to the Light that guides understanding.

​Acknowledgments

All praise belongs to Allah, the Source of Justice, Mercy, and Meaning—the One who placed in every human heart the instinct to seek what is right and the unease that follows what is wrong. Gratitude is due to all His prophets and messengers, who illuminated the long road of human conscience.

My personal gratitude extends to those who guided this work from an idea to a completed manuscript. I am indebted to the mentors, colleagues, and early readers whose insights and challenging questions sharpened the arguments within these pages.

My deepest thanks are for my wife and daughters, for their love, unwavering support, and the energy that made this work possible. This book, my 24th, stands upon a foundation of their continuous cooperation and countless sacrifices.

This work is also a tribute to those men and women—of all faiths and none—whose integrity has compelled them to act justly. Their courage testifies that the moral law is not bound by time or culture, but written in the soul of humanity.

To all who strive, however imperfectly, to bring the world closer to its promised balance—may this book be a humble companion on that journey.

​Introduction

Every civilization begins with a question and ends with an answer.

Between them lies the restless stretch of history — a story of laws, revolutions, philosophies, and faiths, all struggling to reconcile the world as it is with the world as it ought to be.

This book joins that long conversation, not as a manifesto but as a meditation. It begins from an intuition so simple that it almost hides in plain sight: the human being cannot bear meaninglessness in matters of justice. We can endure pain, but not purposeless injustice. Something within us insists that wrong cannot have the last word.

1. The Inquiry Ahead

The chapters that follow explore this insistence — its logic, its moral weight, and its inevitable conclusion. They trace the movement from the moral cry within to the moral completion beyond.

The inquiry unfolds in three broad arcs:

Diagnosis: uncovering why worldly justice, however noble in intention, remains structurally incomplete;

Horizon: showing that the demand for final justice is not merely theological but rational — a corollary of conscience;

Fulfillment: recognizing that the Day of Absolute Justice is not a threat but the completion of moral reason itself.

Each section is written to engage both believer and skeptic, inviting them to think rather than to submit, to see rather than to surrender to slogans.

2. The Approach

The inquiry that follows proceeds by the discipline of reason, yet it listens for the resonance of revelation. It assumes that intellect and insight are not adversaries but allies — two instruments in the same moral symphony. Logical reflection lays out the structure; revelation supplies the depth of meaning.

Rather than debating creeds, the chapters build an argument from human experience outward — from the cry for justice to the necessity of a realm where justice is complete. The book’s task is not to convert, but to clarify; not to impose belief, but to demonstrate coherence.

Across its pages, voices from different traditions appear as witnesses to a shared moral intuition. From prophets to philosophers, all point toward one truth: that the moral universe is unfinished until every wrong finds its right.

3. The Reading Path

The Prologue, titled The Unfinished Symphony, sets the tone of this search. It portrays humanity’s moral experience as a composition awaiting its final note — a universe resonant with justice yet not yet at rest.

The first chapter, The Cry for Justice, then gathers the voices of history, conscience, and moral psychology to show how deeply the demand for fairness is woven into human nature.

Subsequent chapters examine the world’s systems of justice — moral, legal, social, and cosmic — revealing their brilliance and their failure. The journey moves from the courtroom of society to the courtroom of the soul, and finally to the Court beyond both, where all moral debts are settled.

4. The Spirit of the Work

This is not a book of disputation but of discernment. It asks the reader to travel inward as much as upward — to observe, with intellectual honesty, the harmony between moral intuition and metaphysical necessity.

To those who come from faith, it offers reasoning that deepens belief.

To those who come from doubt, it offers reasoning that respects their integrity.

And to all, it offers a shared recognition: that justice, the oldest longing of the human heart, cannot remain an unfinished story.

The curtain lifts where silence becomes witness, and the world waits for its last, unbroken chord.

​Prologue — The Unfinished Case

Where the silence of conscience becomes evidence.

The Long Shadow of Justice

There are moments when history seems to hold its breath — not in triumph, but in the expectant silence before a verdict that never comes. The air grows still, waiting for a justice that earthly courts are not built to provide.

One such moment froze a war-weary world in the gray light of Nuremberg. Inside the palace of justice, the air carried the scent of old ash and fresh ink. Translators’ voices wove a brittle tapestry of languages, stitching together testimonies of unutterable loss. The world watched, desperate for a verdict that could morally cleanse a century. And when the sentences fell, they landed with the finality of law. Yet, in the silence that followed, a deeper truth echoed: a noose cannot resurrect a single child. A prison cell cannot balance the scales for a million souls. The justice required was of a different magnitude altogether—one that human hands were too small to grasp.

Nuremberg was not an exception. It was a confession.

From the hemlock cup that silenced Socrates to the truth commissions that sifted through the rubble of broken nations, humanity has built altars to justice, only to find the deity absent. We pass judgments, erect monuments, and whisper apologies into the winds of time. But the ache remains—a phantom limb of a moral body that feels it ought to be whole. Our greatest legal triumphs are but parentheses in a sentence that runs on, unresolved.

This is the great, unfinished case of humankind: justice perpetually deferred, yet a hope that refuses to die.

Even the architect of modern secular reason, Immanuel Kant, conceded that without a final judgment, the moral law within us becomes a mere phantom of the brain. If the virtuous and the vicious share the same six feet of earth, then our conscience is the cruelest trick evolution ever played. Yet, we cannot live as if it is. We continue to protest, to build memorials, to demand redress. Something in our constitution knows the final