أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ لَيْسَ لَهُمْ فِي الْآخِرَةِ إِلَّا النَّارُ ۖ وَحَبِطَ مَا صَنَعُوا فِيهَا وَبَاطِلٌ مَّا كَانُوا يَعْمَلُونَ (16)
(11:16) They are the ones who shall have nothing in the Hereafter except Fire. *16 (There they shall come to know) that their deeds in the world have come to naught; and that whatever they have done is absolutely useless.
*16). Those who keep their attention focused on this world and its benefits will reap worldly benefits in proportion to their efforts. However, since such people have not been concerned with, nor did they direct their efforts to achieving success and well-being in the Hereafter, there is no reason to suppose that their efforts, aimed merely at achieving worldly benefits, will also embrace the benefits of the Hereafter. A person can expect that his action in this world will be of some benefit to him in the Next Life only if he has engaged himself in tasks which are beneficial in the Next Life as well. This can be illustrated by example. A person wants to have a stately mansion to live in and to that end he adopts the means that are ordinarily adopted for its construction.
Now, if he has adopted the requisite means he will indeed have a stately mansion. Even if such a person happens to be an unbeliever, this fact will not prevent the mansion from being constructed. However, when such a person breathes his last, he will have to leave behind that mansion and its belongings and will be able to take nothing of it to the Next World. Now, if he has not taken the necessary steps to obtain a mansion in the Next World, he will simply not obtain any such mansion there. Only those who performed deeds which, according to God's Law, would make him deserve a mansion in the Next World will be able to have it.
One might be inclined to say: "This line of argument at best leads to the conclusion that such a person who cares only for this world, should be denied a mansion in the Next World. But does that also call for consigning him, in the Next World, to Hell-Fire?' On this point the Qur'an explains on more than one occasion that all those who work in total disregard of the Hereafter necessarily engage in acts which lead them to end up in a heap of Fire in the Next Life rather than in a mansion in Paradise. (See, for instance, Yunus 10, n. 12.)