When: 14th Of March 2015
Where: Ma home.

"Every soul will taste death. And We test you with evil and with good as trial; and to Us you will be returned."
[Holy Quran 21:35]

A few days ago I came to hear about the death of an individual. Not that news on death is out of the ordinary. But this made me reflect on our state of life. The person who passed away, (May Allah grant him the highest place of Jannah), was an Ustad who had actually taught both my younger siblings. Which had me taken aback was that he was so young, like in his thirties. And had little kids or a kid I guess. He died of heart attack in his sleep. And I recall last Ramadan, the death of a sixteen year old guy who was met with an accident when he was riding on his chopper. A countless number of untimely deaths have I come to know such as these.

This makes me wonder and reflect greatly on how temporary this life seem to be. Death could come any moment and tap on your shoulders. Death has no regard for the sick or healthy, old or young and it is going to take us away when we don't expect it in the least.

Doesn't that give you the creeps?

It isn't the fact about dying being scary. Maybe to a certain extent. But it is about whether we are prepared to die. Whenever I hear of an untimely death, the immediate thought that runs in my head is,
'Was he/she prepared?'

It scares me greater than death itself. What if they weren't prepared? What if I won't be prepared? How utterly futile would my life been if it was? (May Allah safeguard us all from such a fate.) Do you understand the gravity of the situation? Let me explain it to you if not.

From the time we're born the only thing that is going to be certain is death. We enjoy our lives. We live our dreams. We carry on with school, collage or uni. We go to work. We spend time with family and friends. No, they aren't wrong things. But do you know that oneday, oneday, death will creep in through our normal everyday routine? We wouldn't even be expecting it!!

If we weren't prepared to meet the Creator, all our medals, rewards and accomplishments of this Dunya is just a waste of energy. Simply saying.

So what should we be doing? Okay, I'm gonna leave everyone behind and go pray and pray all the Nafl Salah's as well in a cave in the middle of the forest for the rest of my life. NO. That isn't what Islam has taught us. We are going to live our normal life with our familiar routine. But what we have to change is our heart.

What?

Nope, I didn't mean of a heart transplant.

I meant our thoughts; the condition of our heart. Our conscious mind. Have you heard of that phrase where people be like,
'I was here enjoying with my friends in a foreign country but my heart was at home.'

Yes yes that. Our heart should be at home whatever the life of this Dunya we're living. Home to our heart is the rememberance of the Creator. Rememberance is the key to success.

Doesn't Allah SWT say in the Quran that,

Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.
[Holy Qur'an 13:28]

It's a not an easy task with so many distractions trying to intoxicate us and deviate us from our eternal goal. But try we have to. It becomes easier through our five daily Salah. You could call them as check points too. At the end of our prayer we can recheck our Imaan level. Boost it if it had gone down even. Do you see how Allah SWT had made things easy on us?
Alhamdulillah.

Death matters. It is the gateway between this temporary life and the eternal life in the Akhira. If our lives were to be a failure, in the point of view of Islam, our whole existence would be a failure. How can we go thorough all that burning and boiling in hell when we can't seem to bear the mere steam of this world? And we know the fire of the Jahannam is seventy times greater than of the fire of the Dunya!! It's mindboggling!!

Forget about the punishments. What about Allah SWT? How can we face Him? What if the Creator and Sustainer of the whole universe is DISPLEASED with us? How would we take it in? How utterly, totally LOST would we be? We don't want to land ourselves in this situation do we?

So remember this tips, we aren't all pure souls. We need to get back to Allah SWT every so often and repent to our sins. We need to talk to Allah; have that special bond with Allah. Remember Him every time no matter where you are.

And who knows when it's our time and Israel Alaihisallam were to tap on our shoulder, we would be like.
'Oh here you are finally!'

In Sha Allah.

Hope you benefitted through this. And may Allah SWT grant us a blessed death, when He's most pleased with us, let the day our souls would be taken be like a day of Eid for us and let our last words be the Kalima La Ilaha Illallah Muhammadur Rasoolullah and May Allah SWT grants us the Jannatul-Firdous with His never ending Rahma.

Aameen.