Does Qur'an 99:6-8 imply that everyone can enter paradise regardless of their beliefs?

Question

Qur'an 99:6-8 is as follows:

That Day, the people will depart separated [into categories] to be shown [the result of] their deeds. So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it, And whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it.

To my understanding, this verse tells people will be put into groups according to their deeds on the Day of Judgment. Those who do good will be rewarded and those who do bad will be punished.

Interesting thing is, this verse solely talks about people's deeds but not their beliefs. It doesn't state belief in God is a precondition to be rewarded.

So can someone who do good enter paradise regardless of his/her belief? If no, then how should we understand the above verse?

Answer 1

Who will enter Heaven, who will not, only The Creator knows. What we can do is to understand what is wanted of us (from the Quran) and live accordingly.

We should evaluate that verse with the message the whole Quran gives. The first requirement for being forgiven and hopefully to be accepted to the Heaven is to believe in The Creator, not in our own way, but in the way it is explained in detail in the Quran.

Good and bad deeds will be used in the judgement but my understanding is that without belief, all good deeds may count for nothing.

Please also refer to verses 2-217, 5-5, 9-17, 39-65 in the Quran. Those are just examples. You can find more similar verses in the Quran.

Answer 2

Beliefs are a major portion of deeds and because of it being a thought/idea/belief, it is continuous through the person's life, which means more sin. Proof for this, is that Allah classified shirk (associating partners with Allah) as a sin, in various ways, categorically. Some places He stated it as "Allah made haram (forbidden)" another place Allah said He forgives all sins except shirk, etc.

We understand the verse as, the muslims and non muslims, their deeds will be weighed and nothing will be neglected, but beliefs are part of the weighing, and the weight of tawheed and shirk are huge, which will govern the weighing of the deeds in general.

So does prayer. It is difficult for someone's deeds to be accepted if they don't pray, simply because the sin of intentionally missing prayers will affect the rest of the deeds.