| Lyna Mohamad |
“LIFE is not guaranteed at all, while death is absolutely guaranteed upon all, yet we still prepare for life more than we prepare for death.”
Speaking in her sharing session titled ‘Death.. Are We Ready For It’ on December 25 at the Rashidah Sa’adatul Bolkiah Mosque in Kampong Sungai Akar, religious speaker Hajah Sharifah Khadijah binti Husein Alkaff added that “most of us are never ready for death, except those who are true servants and lovers of Allah the Almighty”.
“We are all travellers. The life of this world is a plantation for the life of the hereafter and it is up to us what kind of seeds we want to sow – ‘seeds of goodness’ or ‘seeds of evil’,” she said.
The speaker also pointed out that we as humans will reap what we sow, and death is inevitable as it is the one thing that we can be certain of in life.
“We are on a journey and we should therefore know about the whole journey’s itinerary, and be prepared for the whole journey, not just this (part on Earth),” she continued.
“Thus, it is indeed something to ponder; that we die each night and Allah the Almighty gives us another chance at life when we wake up the next day. “What if we do not wake up? Shouldn’t we also ponder how we would like to die?”
Hajah Sharifah Khadijah noted that most people are so engrossed in worldly pursuits that they tend to not think about death as often as they should, and forget that life is temporary.
She cited an example of a visitor to a holy land who once visited a famous scholar and was astonished to see that the scholar’s home was only a simple room filled with books, with the only furniture being a table and a bench.
“‘Ya Shaykh, where is your furniture?’ asked the visitor. ‘Where is yours?’ replied the scholar. ‘Mine? But I’m only a visitor here.’ ‘So am I,’ said the scholar,” Hajah Sharifah Khadijah said, narrating the dialogue between the two.
She explained that those who love to meet Allah the Almighty will be patient in the face of fatal illnesses and in accepting the death of their loved ones, and that there is a bond between the body and the soul, such that the greater the love one places towards the worldly life, the greater the pain of pulling apart the soul from the body.
“Let’s learn to love the world less and instead love meeting with Allah the Almighty more,” Hajah Sharifah Khadijah said.
People in general tend to think that once a person has died, there is nothing left other than just memories, which is actually untrue, she added, as there are different realms in this consciousness we call life.
She continued, “The realm of the dead is called the barzakh and although we know nothing about the barzakh, those who are there know all about us in this world, and death ends a life, not a relationship.
“Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) has said that human beings are asleep in this world and at the time of death they will wake up.
“The life of this world might well be a dream while the life to come might be the reality that is hidden from us and will become apparent on awakening in the hereafter, and this is why perhaps Imam Ghazali said not to grieve at his death:
“‘Say to my friends… when they look upon me dead. Weeping for me and mourning me in sorrow.
“Do not believe that this corpse is myself.
“In the name of Allah the Almighty, I tell you, it is not I!
“I am a spirit and this is nothing but flesh
“It was my abode and my garment for a time….
“I am a pearl which has left its shell.
“I am a bird, and this body was my cage…
“I have now flown forth and it is left as a token.
“All praise be to Allah the Almighty, who has now set me free (from the shackles of life).
“Think not that death is death… No!…it is (the beginning of a new) life.’”