Wanting to Live in This World Forever
Message:
The society of the ignorant is made up of people dominated by an idea revealed in the Qur’an in the words “They do not measure Allah with His true measure…” (Surat al-An‘am,91) and “made Him into something to cast disdainfully behind your backs”(Surah Hud, 92).
Although some members of that society like to regard themselves as civilized, their failure to properly appreciate Allah and to accept and believe in the Hereafter and their unwillingness to think about and understand the purpose behind their own creation actually make them ignorant.
In addition to the members of that society having a great many logical misconceptions, another of their distinguishing features is they way they plan their lives as if they will never die. Say: ‘Death, from which you are fleeing, will certainly catch up with you.
Then you will be returned to the Knower of the Unseen and the Visible and He will inform you about what you did.’ (Surat-al-Jumu‘a, 8)
In the society of the ignorant death is a matter that everyone knows about but that nobody speaks of or even wishes to mention.
Almost all plans are made by ignoring death. Since all plans are made without bearing death in mind it is regarded as bad form even to speak of that inevitable end.
Ignoring the fact of death is just one of the distorted perspectives held by members of the society of the ignorant on a great many matters.
Since everyone must eventually die, as stipulated in the Qur’an in the words “Every self will taste death.”(Surah Al ‘Imran,185), a life planned and lived without including death in one’s calculations is of course one built on a major error.
This is a truth that everyone can easily see with a little sincere reflection. Do We Think about These Things?
* How our Lord blessed you by creating you from nothing, how every human being will live until the appointed time and will inevitably die, and how refusal to think about death represents no escape from it,
* How Our Lord’s promise to resurrect people after death has been revealed in hundreds of verses of the Qur’an and how Allah will certainly keep that promise,
* How death is not the end, but a gateway to the Hereafter and eternal life? It is obvious that when all these things are borne in mind, fear of death is meaningless. There is no point in fearing death, since nobody has ever been able to avoid it, andnobody ever will… When that moment, which is set out in the destinies of all human beings, arrives, they will inevitably die, and no matter what they do they will be unable to prolong their lives by even a minute.
It is also revealed in the Qur’an that those who fear death will never be able to escape it:…They are concealing things inside themselves which they do not disclose to you, saying, ‘If we had only had asay in the affair, none of us would have been killed here in this place.’Say, ‘Even if you had been inside your homes, those people for whom killing was decreed would have gone out to their place of death… (SurahAl ‘Imran, 154)
Death is a doorway leading to the Hereafter.
Yet this door is also one of glad tidings opening onto happiness and salvation for those who lead their lives in a manner compatible with Allah’s approval.
For those with no faith in Allah, however, death is the beginning of certain ruin and disaster that will last for all time. Our Lord has revealed in the Qur’an how the repentance of those who forget Him and live as if they will never die will be meaningless:
There is no repentance for people who persist in doing evil until death comes to them and who then say, ‘Now Irepent,’ nor for people who died is believers. We have prepared for them a painful punishment. (Surat-an-Nisa, 18)
