Looking at this life from grave?
Life flies by in the blink of an eye. One moment you are in your 20s, the next you are in your 40s; then you are at death’s door. While life flies by so fast, death comes when a person is not expecting it and leaves that person all alone, having left behind all his friends and everyone he knew behind. That person may be the richest man in the world, a famous star or a scientist known all over the planet; all his real estate and palaces will never alter that reality. On the day of one’s death, one meets the angels that will take away one’s soul in a full state of submission to them, while the body is placed into the grave prepared for it to rot.
The life that passes with great bustle over the course of 60 or 70 years eventually comes to an end in the grave. Let us imagine for one moment that such a person looks at the life of this world from his grave. What will he see? He will see that other people are now living in that home he valued so much, every corner of which he furnished and decorated.
Pictures of other people adorn the living room. Other people are using his car or the jewelry that he loved so much once. His other possessions have been given away, and almost nothing that once belonged to him remains.
Other people are working hard in the business he founded with such effort and spent long hours in every day. He wants to tell them that death is imminent and of the transitory nature of the life of this world, but not a word leaves his lips. He merely watches the life of this world from another dimension. The people in that workplace are all laughing together, holding meetings, eating with friends or striving hard to make money. While people in this world are so distracted, people in the grave know that it is all insignificant and temporary. A person will not be able to take even so much as a handkerchief to the other side. You may amass a vast amount of money in this world, and have gold in banks and shares on the Stock Exchange yet these things are all meaningless: One cannot take a thing from this world into the hereafter.
That same person then looks at his family, children and friends in this world from the grave. He sees that some are on the brink of death, some have grown old and are fighting diseases, while others have long since joined him in the grave. The life they spent together has passed. The days when they ate and talked and worked together are over. But he looks around and can see none of them with him. The only One he sees as he lies all alone in the grave is Allah:
“You have come to Us all alone just as We created you at first, leaving behind you everything We bestowed on you. We do not see your intercessors accompanying you, those you claimed were your partners with Allah. The link between you is cut. Those you made such claims for have forsaken you.” (Surat Al-An’am, 94)
If the person looking from the grave at the life of this world did not believe during his life, if he did not turn to our Lord, his Creator, and if he rejected worship and followed satan instead, he will be in a state of the most terrible regret. All his pride and arrogance in this world have given way to utter helplessness, weakness and wretchedness. That body he so valued has lost all its beauty, and is now old and squeezed into a cramped grave. All that trouble for the sake of amassing possessions in this world, all the efforts to please other people for that purpose, all the concessions and all the rewards are in vain. There is not a single thing in his hands any more. The reward for those pointless endeavors is the eternal life of hell:
“Abandon those who have turned their religion into a game and a diversion and who have been deluded by the life of this world. Remind by it lest a person is delivered up to destruction for what he has earned with no protector or intercessor besides Allah. Were he to offer every kind of compensation, it would not be accepted from him. Such people are delivered up to destruction for what they have earned. They will have scalding water to drink and a painful punishment because they were disbelievers.” (Surat Al-An’am, 70)
Will not the person looking at the life of this world from the grave say, “My Lord, I have been a fool to become caught up in this world. How could I have sought fun and entertainment, without ever thinking, or seeing the blessings You created and giving thanks for them? I never once felt curious about the Qur’an You sent and opened it up; I turned away from the thousands of verses You sent for me. But now I look and see that the world I valued so much and all the friends who used to help me with everything are all gone. My children, spouse and brothers and sisters are not here. You My Lord is the only One that is here with me. This distracting and fun-filled world eventually ends in eternal paradise or hell. But I failed to see. Only now do I realize that real life only begins in the hereafter.”
And that denier will go on to say, “I cannot describe the terrible regret I am feeling now. Send me back, O Lord. Let me one of the pure, one of Your servants with whom You are well pleased.”
A believer who spent his entire life in faith will also look at the life of this world from the grave. But a gloriously beautiful paradise full of countless blessings has been prepared for him. In paradise he will find the finest examples of all that he spent and used on Allah’s path. If his wife and family and friends were also believers, he and they will sit on thrones and laugh and they shall enjoy themselves together. He spent all his life seeking Allah’s approval and has finally attained eternity in the gardens of Eden. Believers encounter delights they had never expected in paradise and are smothered in blessings, while unbelievers are deprived of even a single drop of water. So the end result of a life spent in faith and good conscience is paradise, while the end result of a life spent in unbelief and foolishness is hell. Let nobody become aware of this fact only when they reach the grave and pass through that gate from which there is no return.
“Those whose scales are heavy, they are the successful. Those whose scales are light, they are the losers of their selves, remaining in hell timelessly, for ever.” (Surat Al-Muminun, 102-103)
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