27/05/2020
Death is not an opposite of life but a part of it.It is a grim reality in this world.It may be natural or due to warfare, starvation, disease,accidents, massacres or age.It is a path we all will eventually take.This simple reality surrounds us and when it involves someone close to us it threatens to drown us.Our society does everything it can to ignore this fact but still we will die and lose everything in our lives.According to a survey one out of ten people thinks that he or she is immortal, we fail to understand that God's timetable differs markedly from ours.Funerals remind us that life is fleeting.
For non believers it is a startling dose of truth, wealth, fame, beauty and fortune are not saviors but temporary escape.
As Queen Elizabeth exclaimed in the final moments of her life,
"ALL MY POSSESSIONS FOR A MOMENT OF TIME !
God works by shattering our illusions of invincibility and uses death to draw us to Himself.Death has gt an invisible cloak so it can sneak up on people.
As the followers of Islam we know that the sin we mourn in this world will no longer be able to touch us, the hollowness of our bodies and soul one day be wholly healed and fully aligned with ALMIGHTY ALLAH . Death is difficult but desperately needed reminder that we should not only cherish this brief life Allah has given to us but paradoxically hold it with open hands.In Islam death is the return of the soul to its Creator,Allah and the inevitability of death and hereafter is never far from His conciousness. As derived from Quranic Verses :
"We learn that death is exactly like sleeping,complete with dreams."
"Every soul will taste death.Then to us will you be returned".
"At the moment of death everyone knows his or her destiny: heaven or hell.For disbelievers death is a horrible event, the angels be at them on faces and rears ends as they sn**ch away their souls".
The mystery of life and death is resolved in Holy Quran by linking it to the working of human conscience and its ability to maintain a healthy spiritual-moral existence with the faith in Allah.Death is divinely willed and when it arrives it should be readily accepted. There should be no reasoning by the bereaved as to why they have lost their loved ones.But Allah knows the best for us,grief and sorrow prepare us for joy.They shake the yellow leavesfrom the boughs of our heart so that fresh green leaves can grow in their place.They pull out the rotten roots from your heart.Copying with the loss of someone you love is the biggest challanges. Often the pain of loss overwhelms; it yriggers a sense of grief. Healing happens gradually, it takes time to bear the loss but time heals everything yet the memories of the lost gem remain in hearts and hover through the alleys of our hearts throughout lifetime.
(Mubassim Iqbal)