Salam Aleikum!
All our efforts for to establish the Deen on earth, even if it's just following the Laws of the Quran or it is spreading its Message. It is not a lost cause. Allah has promised victory for the Quranic Deen, as all nations will eventually accept it as the only true way for humanity.
Remember that when people and nations fall into misery, they will acknowledge that following God's guidance is the best way. So falling into misery and war(jahannam) is also a lesson. Jahannam is called the maula/protector in 57:15 of the rejectors, as refering it to be a between phase of humanity, and also called umm/mother in 101:9, which refers that Jahannam is a position of nurturing as a lesson to them for knowing that following all selfish desires will not attain them anything. It is a classroom that will show them their way will get them nowhere. Jahannam in the history of this earth, is a lesson between believing in illusion and reality, following God's guidance and following human ideas, which is why everyone will see Jahannam, once in their excistence 19:71. This verse beautifully shows that everyone in their lifetime has one time neglected following God's guidance which in the end gave them misery.
That Jahannam is a between phase of humanity can also be seen at the use of fitnah in 2:191, 29:2&10, where it refers to the trials for the believers. Fitnah comes from the meaning of 'purifying gold' or 'throwing in rubbish to the fire'. Which refers to loosing illusions that will create bad fruits/results, as they are confronted with the truth during those fitnah's, they are confronted with the Law of Requital, the result of their deeds. The gold=nafs must be cleaned of all veils/illusions as in 17:46, so it can attain the higher mindstate and society. In 37:63 people in a Jahannam will also get fitnah, which refers to 'the tree of zaqum'.
As shown by the word Jannah='garden covered in foilage', whereby the ground refers to the Nafs/Self or society which has certain knowledge and beliefs, which will create certain deeds=trees, and the fruits are it's results. So is the same understanding with 'the tree of zaqum' which is a deed which is called a 'fitnah' in 37:63, a purifying deed. Zaqum means literally, 'a tree with small round leaves without thornes, it has a penetrating smell and is bitter, the tips of the leaves are filthy tasting'. It is a real existing tree in East Arabia. It is so bitter, even camels don't eat it.
So for humanity, the Hells on earth they have created themselves through following their selfish desires, are purifying, but this purifying will be experienced as eating something filthy. It is falling into destruction which will taste bitter, but is in the same time a purifying thing, as they have at least lost the belief that greed will get them anywhere, they will loose the belief humanity can guide itself alone or by 'religions'. They are purified from the concepts of following their own desires and neglecting God's true guidance.
In short, humanity will learn the truth, as it will be sick of all the misery they have created throughout the ages, and they will accept the Quran as their guide:
With the Glorious Name of Allah, the Instant and Sustaining Source of All
Mercy and Kindness.
110:1 When comes Allah's Help and the Victory.
110:2 And you see the people enter Allah’s Religion in throngs. (19:96).
9:33 He it is Who has sent His Messenger with Guidance and the True Religion (DEEN = The System of Life), that He may cause it to prevail over all religions and systems of life, even though the idolaters may detest it. (9:31-33, 14:48, 18:48, 48:28, 61:9).
So to remind you all for the great job we have ahead of us, and also the promised victory. I will quote Allamma Parwez and Muhammed Asad, who both beautifully show that the acceptance of the true Deen by the world is a long process. I hope this post will encourage you all that your efforts are important and will have effect over the long term!
"This discussion emerged out of the question: why the Quranic Social Order which assures a peaceful, prosperous and glorious life to mankind has not been established anywhere in the world, not even in any Muslim state, although the Divine Guidance has been with us for fourteen centuries. The answer so far provided is that cosmic process is slow, very slow when measured by serial or historic time. The point requires further elucidation. Evolutionary changes take place in the outer universe automatically, according to Divine plan, and by stages, each involving thousand and thousand of years to accomplish.
This cosmic process. In the case of man, however, this process works in a somewhat different way. Man (and here we mean not travelling in the light of Divine guidance) when pressed by circumstances to modify any existing state of affairs, adopts a course which he thinks the best, works on it strenuously day in and day out, but finds at the end that the course adopted was wrong. He abandons it and embarks upon another course. This he has to repeat time and again.
Often he feels exhausted during the course of his journey and leaves the experiment incomplete in dire frustration. Even when he reaches his destination, the labour involved and the time spent do, not commensurate with the result achieved—the span of human life is so short and the distance to be traversed so lengthy. This process of "trial and error" is another form of cosmic process. Man has, however, not been left in wilderness to find his way out, un-aided by guide or without any signposts on his way. He has been blessed with Divine guidance. If he adopts the course suggested by it straightway, not only is he protected against pitfalls but the time taken to reach the goal also shrinks from cosmic reckoning to human calendar. Fourteen hundred years ago, a group of believers made this experiment most successfully, which, apart from the miraculous results it produced, proved that neither the Quranic Social Order was a utopia nor the programme laid down to establish it was un-workable.
Their later generations, however abandoned that course, with the result that they met the same fate as did the past -nations who acted similarly. (This, by the way, is the negative proof of the efficacy of the Divine Law governing the rise and fall of nations). The Divine course is still there and can be taken up by any nation who wishes to reach human destination safely and within the shortest possible time:
Say : The truth from your Rabb is there ; so let whosoever will accept, and let whosoever will reject (18 29)." [Islam;A Challenge to Religion by G.A.Parwez]
And here is Muhammed Asad, the renowned translator:
"I had no illusions as to the present state of affairs in the Muslim world. The 4 years i have spend in those countries had shown me that while Islam was still alive, perceptible in the world-view of its adherents and their silent admission of its ethical premises, they themselves were like people paralyzed, unable to translate their beliefs into fruitfull action. But what concerned me more than the failure of present-day Muslims to implement the scheme of islam were the potentialities of that scheme itself. It was sufficient for me to know that for a short time, quite at the beginning of Islamic history, a succesful attempt HAD been made to translate that scheme into practice; and what had seemed possible at one time might perhaps become really possible at another.
What did it matter, i told myself, that the Muslims had gone astray from the original teachings and subsided into indolence and ignorance? What did it matter that they did not live up to the ideal placed before them by the Arabian Prophet 13 centuries ago-if the ideal itself still lay open to all who were willing to listen to its message?And it might well be, i thought, that we latecomers needed that message even more desperately than did the people of Muhammed's time.
They lived in an enviroment much simpler than ours, and so their problems and difficluties had been much easier of solution. The world in which i was living-the whole of it-was wobbling because of the absence of any agreement as to what is good and what is evil spiritually and, therefor, socially and economically as well. I did not believe that individual man was in need of 'salvation': but i did believe that modern society was in need of salvation. More than any previous time, i felt with mounting certainty, this time of ours wa sin need of an ideological basis for a new social contract: it needed a faith that would make us understand the hollowness of materail progress for the sake of progress alone-and nevertherless would give the life of this world its due; that would show us how to strike a balance between our spiritual and physical requirmentsa; and thus save us from the disaster into which we were rushing headlong."[Road to Mecca by M.Asad]