They Will Not Be Permitted to Speak
The unbelievers will receive their books with great astonishment and regret. Their exclamations of "If only!" and "Alas for us!" show that they will be aware of their remorse's vanity. There is no point in moaning and complaining, as they are said to do in the following verse: "They will exclaim on the Day their faces are rolled over in the Fire: 'If only we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the Messenger!'" (Surat al-Ahzab, 66) Allah will answer their begging, cries, weeping, and screaming for help with the following words:
"Today We have forgotten you, as you forgot the meeting of this your Day..." (Surat al-Jathiya, 34)
Despite of all this, they will continue to make demands on Allah: to send them into a realm of nothingness, to allow them to give all they have in ransom to escape the suffering, and even to be sent back to Earth to rectify their wrongs. The Qur'an says:
If only you could see the evildoers hanging their heads in shame before their Lord: "Our Lord, we have seen and we have heard, so send us back again and we will act rightly. Truly we now have certainty." (Surat as-Sajda, 12)
They will beg to save themselves from the shocking punishment. But Allah reveals that they will never change their old ways and that there is now no way for them to save themselves. The unbelievers have committed the most serious sin: rebellion against Allah, Who created and sustained them. Therefore, they are not permitted to defend themselves. Allah says:
On that Day, woe to the unbelievers! This is the Day on which they will not say a single word, nor will they be allowed to offer any excuses. On that Day, woe to the unbelievers! (Surat al-Mursalat, 34-37)
Allah will not speak with, protect, or purify them as a consequence of what they have done, for:
Those who conceal what Allah has sent down of the Book and sell it cheap take nothing into their bellies but the Fire. On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will not speak to them or purify them. They will have a painful punishment. (Surat al-Baqara, 174)
Those who sell Allah's contract and their own oaths for a paltry price, such people will have no portion in the Hereafter, and on the Day of Resurrection Allah will not speak to them or look at them or purify them. They will have a painful punishment. (Surah Al ‘Imran, 77)
He will say: "Slink away into it and do not speak to Me." (Surat al-Mu'minun, 108)
People's anger cannot be compared to Allah's anger with the unbelievers. Irrespective of how furious people might get, their vengeance is limited, whereas Allah's is beyond our comprehension. This vengeance culminates in an incredibly painful recompense, one that exceeds the limits of our intellect and imagination. The Qur'an reveals this fact, as follows:
The ones who do not believe will be addressed [as follows]: "Allah's disgust will be even greater than your own disgust is toward one another when you are called upon to believe and [still] do not believe." (Surah Ghafir, 10)
They Are in Fear
The unbelievers' eternal fear and remorse begins when the angels of death take their lives. None of them can escape this event, because this is their final capture and, after their death, they will pass through the gates of eternity. At that moment, an indescribable fear will grip their whole being, and they will realize that the promised punishment has just began. As Allah says in the Qur'an:
... If you could only see the wrongdoers in the throes of death when the angels are stretching out their hands, saying: "Disgorge your own selves! Today you will be repaid with the punishment of humiliation for saying something other than the truth about Allah, and being arrogant about His Signs." (Surat al-An‘am, 93)
Having left all their earthly wealth, which has been rendered worthless and meaningless, they will find that none of their treasures or people whom they had counted upon can help them. As the verse says, they will be all alone, for:
You have come to Us all alone, just as We created you at first, leaving behind you everything We bestowed upon you. We do not see your intercessors accompanying you, those whom you claimed were your partners with Allah. The link between you is cut. Those for whom you made such claims have forsaken you. (Surat al-An‘am, 94)
As if their hands and feet are bound, they will be unable to control or guard their bodies, which they had liked so much and thought that they could control and use to fulfill their desires. They just cannot do what they want to. The verses reveal that they will be invited to prostrate before Allah, but that they will not be able to:
On the Day when legs are bared and they are called on to prostrate, they will not be able to do so. Their eyes will be downcast, darkened by debasement, for they were called on to prostrate when they were in full possession of their faculties. (Surat al-Qalam, 42-43)
Allah is the possessor of everything, and everything happens according to His will. The unbelievers will be asked to prostrate so that they will feel remorse and pain for delaying this while alive. These people, who were too vain to prostrate before Allah will not be able to do so now, even though they will want to. They will be captured, called to 
account, and sent to Hell.
They Feel Remorse
Those who deny the meeting with Allah have lost, so that, when the Hour comes upon them suddenly, they will exclaim: "Alas for what we neglected there!" They will bear their burdens on their backs. How evil is what they bear! (Surat al-An‘am, 31)
People often experience remorse, but even when they can rectify what they have done, for some reason their pride prevents them from doing so. They think that they know best and shut their ears to all advice. But on that Day, they will experience remorse for their behavior. Even though they will plead, full of remorse, to be sent back to Earth to make amends, their request will be refused. They will realize that the wealth, children, partners, traditions, ideologies, and all of the other things they strove for and defended have no value, and that only those deeds done for Allah's good pleasure have true value. But this realization will not benefit them anymore.
Some will try to conceal their remorse because of their pride, as follows:
If every self that did wrong possessed everything on Earth, it would offer it as a ransom. They will confide regret when they see the punishment. Everything will be decided between them justly. They will not be wronged. (Surah Yunus, 54)
Even though they know their guilt, they still try to conceal their remorse. They get exactly what they deserve, for Allah's justice demands it. Allah will separate the believers and the unbelievers on that Day. All that the unbelievers experience on the Day of Judgment is a consequence of preferring Satan's path over Allah's, and something that is truly deserved, for:
Those who perform bad actions will be flung headfirst into the Fire: "Are you being repaid for anything other than what you did?" (Surat an-Naml, 90)
Many factors will bring on this remorse. For example, their meeting with Allah's punishment, being all alone, watching their skins testify against them, being made hideous, sensing the terror of eternal suffering, seeing Hell and, comprehending the damnation that is awaiting them, seeing the false deities they followed blindly and trusted in suddenly disappear, and seeing that Satan, whose path they followed consistently, also has deserted them. The Qur'an recounts what Satan will tell his followers on that Day in the following words:
When the affair is decided, Satan will say: "Allah made you a promise, a promise of truth, and I made you a promise but broke my promise. I had no authority over you, except that I called you and you responded to me. Do not, therefore, blame me, but blame yourselves. I cannot come to your aid, nor you to mine. I reject the way you associated me with Allah before." The wrongdoers will have a painful punishment. (Surah Ibrahim, 22)
The believers will watch the unbelievers' hopeless situation, whereas the unbelievers will regard the believers from the corner of their eyes, as their heads will be lowered in shame and remorse. This reality is revealed in one verse:
You will see them as they are exposed to it, abject in their abasement, glancing around them furtively. Those who believe will say: "Truly the losers are those who lose themselves and their families on the Day of Resurrection." The wrongdoers are in an everlasting punishment. (Surat ash-Shura, 45)
The degree of remorse in the Hereafter is far too great to be compared with anything on Earth. There is no return or escape from this remorse, for it is the end of the unbelievers' inevitable and unstoppable breakdown, which they are forced to bear on their shoulders. This devastation and remorse is the consequence of their denial of Allah, Who created them and then offered almost all there is on Earth for their use. This path of denial determined their final destination in the Hereafter: Hell. There, they will experience for eternity every conceivable sorrow, pain, and worry they would rather not have thought about. Allah's retribution will face them with all of its might. 
They Bicker between Themselves
Arguing in it with one another, they will say: "By Allah, we were plainly misguided when we equated you with the Lord of all the worlds. It was only the evildoers who misguided us, and now we have no one to intercede for us. We do not have a single loyal friend. If only we could have another chance, then we would be among the believers!" There is certainly a Sign in that, yet most of them are not believers. (Surat ash-Shu‘ara', 96-103)
The unbelievers will meet a suffering of unequalled proportions. They will be extremely angry at their situation and furious with the people who led them away from Allah's path. Their greatest ambitions, such as wealth and position, will have lost all meaning. They will be furious with their leaders, who led them away from His path, and try to distance themselves from them. The dispute between those who led and those who followed is revealed, as follows:
When those who were followed disown those who followed them, and they see the punishment and the connection between them is cut, those who followed will say: "If only we could have another chance, we would disown them just as they have disowned us." In that way Allah will show them their actions as a cause of anguish and remorse for them. They will never emerge from the Fire. (Surat al-Baqara, 166-67)
They will say on the Day their faces are rolled over in the Fire: "If only we had obeyed Allah and obeyed the Messenger!" And they will say: "Our Lord, we obeyed our masters and great men, and they misguided us from the Way. Our Lord, give them double the punishment and curse them many times over!" (Surat al-Ahzab, 66-68)
Allah points out that such leaders are one of the factors that lead people away from belief in Him. People who are considered superior because of other people's values and not because of Allah's values, have an enormous influence over their followers. People who submit to these leaders are tricked into living according to this world's impermanent values and thus waste their lives. However, unable to recognize their mistakes on Earth, they supported one another in disobedience against Allah and abided by their own creeds. When their error is exposed on this Day, they will begin to blame one another. Regardless of these accusations, neither party will be saved from Hell.
Allah describes such leaders in the following terms:
We made them leaders, summoning to the Fire, and on the Day of Resurrection they will not be helped. We pursued them with a curse in this world... (Surat al-Qasas, 41-42)
He [Pharaoh] will go ahead of his people on the Day of Resurrection and lead them down into the Fire. What an evil watering-hole to be led to! (Surah Hud, 98) 
The unbelievers will wish that there was a distance as great as that between East and West between them and the leaders whom they followed. Allah states that:
If someone shuts his eyes to the remembrance of the All-Merciful, We assign him a devil who becomes his bosom friend—they debar them from the path, yet they still think they are guided—so that, when he reaches Us, he says: "If only there was the distance of the two Easts [East and West] between you and me!" What an evil companion! It will not benefit you today, since you did wrong, that you share equally in the punishment. (Surat az-Zukhruf, 36-39)
People will not want to know some of those whom they loved, trusted, or were attached to with desire while alive; they will deny others and condemn the rest. The Qur'an says:
He [Ibrahim] said: "You have adopted idols apart from Allah as tokens of mutual affection in this world. But then on the Day of Resurrection you will reject one another and curse one another. The Fire will be your shelter. You will have no helpers." (Surat al-‘Ankabut, 25)
The Qur'an relates their ensuing arguments, as follows:
[The custodians of Hell will be told:] "Hurl into Hell every obdurate unbeliever, impeder of good, doubt-causing aggressor who set up another deity together with Allah. Hurl him into the terrible punishment." His inseparable comrade will say: "Our Lord, I did not make him overstep the limits. He was, in any case, far astray." He will say: "Do not argue in My presence when I gave you advance warning of the Threat. My Word, once given, is not subject to change, and I do not wrong My servants." (Surah Qaf, 24-29)
Those who despised the believers' righteous path will be astonished when they do not find the believers beside them on that Day, as described below:
They [the profligate] will say: "How is it that we do not see some men whom we used to count among the worst of people? Did we turn them into figures of fun? Did our eyes disdain to look at them?" All this is certainly true—the bickering of the people of the Fire. (Surah Sad, 62-64)
While they were alive, their disputes with each other never ended and, in fact, they actually darkened their own lives. In reality, they are well aware of the cruelty that they inflicted upon one another. They did not find peace even among those close to them or in their own environment, and yet they would not cease their arguing. Whereas the believers always live in contentment here and in the Hereafter, the unbelievers always live in a state of restlessness and discontent. They will receive pain from all sides, as well as dispute continually with those whom they consider close.
They Are Disgraced
Arrogance toward Allah will bring humiliation. People who do not believe in the Hereafter, deny Allah's evident existence, and live a carefree life will pay a heavy price in return. As they do not consider His punishment probable and so do not think about it, they become Satan's servants by falling for his diversionary tactics and thus waste their lives. Instead of living life as a test, they live it as empty cause. Their arrogance caused them to commit many sins, such as fighting Allah and looking for ways to deny Him. This is no doubt a great sin, one that will lead to great suffering and humiliation in the Hereafter.
Obviously, the unbelievers are wrong. They never inquire into the source of Allah's gifts or how they came by their wealth, and consider it their right to enjoy life's pleasures without remembering and giving thanks to their Creator. But the consequences of such arrogance will be massive. The verses reveal:
On the Day when those who did not believe are exposed to the Fire [it will be said]: "You dissipated the good things you had in your worldly life and enjoyed yourself in it. So today you are being repaid with the punishment of humiliation for being arrogant in the land without any right and for being deviators." (Surat al-Ahqaf, 20)
Those who spend their lives pursuing the world and never reflect upon the Hereafter will be humiliated on the Day of Judgment and after. Allah reveals this truth in the following verses:
Has news of the Overwhelmer reached you? Some faces on that Day will be downcast, laboring, toiling endlessly. (Surat Ghashiya, 1-3)
Then on the Day of Resurrection He will disgrace them and ask: "Where are My partner deities, for whose sake you became so hostile?" Those given knowledge will say: "Today there is disgrace and evil for the unbelievers." (Surat an-Nahl, 27)
And on the Day of Resurrection his punishment will be doubled, and he will be humiliated in it timelessly, forever. (Surat al-Furqan, 69)
People who continue their war on Allah with an ugly impudence disregard the Day of Judgment. They live unaware of the plan Allah has devised for them, a plan that is unrivalled. Only small groups of people accepted and then abided by the Messengers' calls. These calls increased other people's unbelief and also increased their burden. In the end, Allah will show the reality of the Hereafter to all people in the most spectacular fashion. And the unbelievers will clearly understand the consequences of Allah's promises. Their lives are not eternal, and their time on Earth has been exhausted. Pleasures and desires have lost their appeal, and the only reality that matters is His judgment. The evil that they did against Allah has been repaid, for He has judged them fit to live forever in suffering and sorrow. On the other hand, the believers' eternal life will be shown to all people with all of its splendor and beauty.
