Is Death a Joy-Trip?
Muhammad Yakub Khan
A man actually in the throes of death alone can tell what exactly the cup of death is like. We who have not yet had the privilege to taste of that cup can at best imagine and conjecture.The general view of death is one of pang and anguish. Age-long ties made sweet and sacred by a multitude of memories are snapped and snapped forever. No more shall the sweet faces of the dear and near ones shall those closing eyes behold. No more shall sweet voices that thrilled the heart with joy shall fall in those ears. Excruciating agony indeed, this separation which to all appearances seems eternal separation.
This is the common and quite natural view of the thing. But we have only to look beneath the surface to see that things are not what they seem, that good lies buried underneath seeming evil, that notwithstanding its dread, death is not altogether an unmixed calamity. Agony indeed it is, excruciating agony that cuts the dying and the surviving both to the quick. But is not all new birth accompanied by travail? The agony of death is but the travail of a new birth in a new world – perhaps a better world. Paradoxical as it may appear, death is not the end but the beginning of life – life fuller and richer than this mundane sojourn. In the soothing words of the Holy Prophet of Islam ﷺ, the grave of a righteous man is but one of the windows opening on Paradise.
It all depends what mental attitude the dying man has on life. To a man of Faith death loses much of its dread. It is but human to feel the pang of separation but of fear and dread, there is nothing in the mind of one with a God-vision. ” To the Comrade on High! ”— these were the last words on the dying lips of the Prophetﷺ. Having lived a life of truth, love and service a Godly man, when from his deathbed he looks back on his life, finds his heart filled with a soothing calm born of virtue and he looks forward to the future with a mind calm and serene. To this effect says the Holy Quran:
” The men of God shall have no fear nor shall they grieve.”
أَلَآ إِنَّ أَوْلِيَآءَ ٱللَّهِ لَا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
Yunus (Jonah) 10:62
Iqbal thus bears out this truth:
نشان مرد مومن با تو گویم
چو مرگ آید تبسم بر لب اوست
“Shall I tell you the sign of a man of faith? When death comes, he has a smile on his lips.”
Death is the greatest dread of man. Islam has however converted this dread into a blessing by giving the Muslim the right vision of the whole thing. No dread, no fear – rather a transition to a higher and better life, a meeting with the Lord. Before such faith all fear of death vanishes even as does the morning dew at the touch of sunrays.
“O thou soul at peace! ”, says the Word of God. “Back to thy Lord – He pleased with thee, thou pleased with Him. Enter My servants and enter My Paradise.”
ٱرْجِعِىٓ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةً مَّرْضِيَّةً
(Al-Fajr (The Dawn) 89:28)
The Prophet ﷺ has said: “Remember death forty times a day” and again: ” Die before you die”. It is at deathbed that all the vanities of life dawn in full force on man. As a rule, our daily life is a mesh of illusions and we entangled in that mesh beyond all hope of rescue. Trifling things assume Himalayan dimensions and it is a pathetic sight to behold otherwise sensible people behave over these trifles as do dogs over bones. That indeed is the only true description of the highest worldly boon. Even the crown which adorns a kingly head is no more than a mere bone in a dog’s mouth – a petty thing compared with the infinitely big issues of life, death and hereafter. To a child his mimic boat which he floats in the street gutter on a rainy day is something more momentous than his fleet to an admiral. With the growth in years comes change in interests, Cricket and football, or theatre and cinema take the place of the paper boat. And when still advanced, wealth and honour, rank and Position mark his heart for their own. Illusions all these, whether the paper boat of the street urchin or the high-sounding portfolio of a council minister. Their vanity, their falsity, their hollowness becomes manifest only when the angel of death comes to tear the mesh from around us. It is then those scales fall down from one’s eyes and things appear in their true perspective. Then does it dawn on man that the true good of man consists not in his so-called possessions but in his God-vision and Godlikeness. For that is the thing that is imperishable and ultimately counts. The prophetic eye of the Prophet ﷺ could see all this, and so he very wisely taught that in order to see things as they really are and not be deceived by glittering appearances, we must put ourselves in a dying man’s position and look at life from his detached and disinterested and hence correct viewpoint. As the Holy Quran has put it:
” On this day shall your vision be sharp.”
لَّقَدْ كُنتَ فِى غَفْلَةٍ مِّنْ هَـٰذَا فَكَشَفْنَا عَنكَ غِطَآءَكَ فَبَصَرُكَ ٱلْيَوْمَ حَدِيدٌ
(Qaf 50:22)
So this is death – the greatest reality in this life of illusions, nay, the only point from which a true view of things can be had. Standing on the borderline, with this life of senses fast receding into oblivion and that Unknown Beyond gradually looming out of the mists of mystery which envelop it, it is a supreme moment of human life before, which all else should pale into insignificance. Yet how many of us are there who even when they have with their own hands laid some near and dear one to eternal rest, at all visualize that what they have just done to another will some-day be done to them! “As sure as death” – so far as the phrase goes, it is on every body’s lips. But if in practical life there is one thing of which everybody is oblivious, it is this great fact of Death. Where ignorance is bliss, some may say, it is folly to be wise. That is but poor satisfaction. The ostrich may bury its head in sand but that would not turn the tiger away. If in this world of false values, false joys and false sorrows, there is one reality which blazes with a dazzling glare, it is the reality of Death. Would that we may foresee it and foreseeing it view things and put values on them in the light of that Reality and so lead our life as to find that supreme moment, when it comes, a moment of a joy-trip to the land of the Beloved.
M.Y.K
(The Light – 24 May 1940)
