"...the pains which souls suffer after death all have their source in excessive love of the world. The Prophet saw said that every unbeliever, after death, will be tormented by 99 snakes, each having 9 heads. Some simple minded peope have examined the unbeliever's graves and wondered at failing to see these snakes. What they do not understand is that these snakes have their abode within the unbeliever's spirit and that they existed in him even before he died, for they were his own evil qualities symbolized such as jealousy, hatred, hyprocrisy, pride, deceit, etc, every one of which springs, directly or remotely, from the love of the world.
Such is the doom of those who, in the words of the Al quran, "...set their hearts on this world rather than on the next".
If those snakes were merely external they might hope to escape their torment, if it were but for a moment: but being their own inherent attributes, how can they escape?"...
Extracted from The Alchemy of Happiness - al Ghazzali
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