Where do we live? The reality of our day-to-day keeps us so far detached from what actually
lies outside this world. The constant chase for money, status, or simply trying to upgrade our
lives fogs our minds.
Every billboard, every ad, every teacher, and every politician floods our heads with everything
except what lies past our front door, everything except what sits beyond the four walls we call
home. It’s always about making the most of your 80 years on earth… but no one ever pauses to
ask: what happens after that?
Graveyards are pushed out to the edges of towns and cities. Funeral directors don’t put up
billboards. Conversations about what comes after death are hardly ever brought up. But why?
Competition in [worldly] increase diverts you, until you visit the graveyards. (At-Takāthur, Ayah 1 – 2)
We’ve all heard people say things like “death doesn’t care who you are,” “death doesn’t care
how old you are,” or “death doesn’t discriminate.” But if there’s one bottom line we should all take from those sayings, it’s this: death is unavoidable.
It’s the one single guarantee in your life. The one situation that will show up whether you like it
or not. Death is coming. Yet the only thing in this life that is genuinely promised to us gets left
out in the cold. We shut the door, double-triple lock it, and pretend that death isn’t taking another
step closer with every moment that passes.
We double-lock that door because the second we actually look out the window, the whole
illusion we’ve built starts to break down. How so?
It was narrated that Abu Hurairah said: “The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Remember often the
destroyer of pleasures.'” (Sunan an-Nasa’i 1824)
To face the reality of death means admitting that almost everything we exhaust ourselves over
doesn’t actually matter in the end. We build our daily lives as if we’re going to live forever. We stress over job titles, chase cheap validation, and map out decades of a future we might not
even live to see, yet we put zero effort into preparing for the one event that is dead certain.
Hiding death behind closed doors gives us a false sense of control. But closing your eyes
doesn’t stop the clock ticking.
Of course, everyone has their own reason for ignoring it. For some, it’s wanting to feel in control.
For others, it’s chasing money and stockpiling more stuff without any real reason. For many, it’s
simply being wrapped up in love for their family, or something else entirely.
But ask yourself: if our daily lives were actually built around the reality of death, would any
of those things still dominate our minds the way they do?
Maybe the very first step to actually understanding death is figuring out why we’re so attached
to the things we chase, and why we care so deeply about the things we love.
Wherever you may be, death will overtake you, even if you should be within towers of lofty
construction… (An-Nisāʾ, Ayah 78)
Death will come, it’s not a matter of ‘will it come?’. It’s a matter of ‘how will I shape my life for
it?’.
Living a life based off the high-life, whether that height being in buildings, whether that height be
in the stack of cash, whether that height be in the family tree, whether that height be in
educational books and accolades, all of this without a clear purpose, unorientated from death,
will cause you to not be expecting death when it comes for you.
But when your life is acted upon around the basis of death and for a mission, you’ll be gladly
waiting for the knock at the door, the knock that will say, ‘Your 80 years are up, enjoy eternity
in a place so extravagant that no human mind can perceive it.’