Illness: A Warning
Al-Risala (English), January 1990, p. 24
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
Illness A Warning
1990 1 January 24 Illness: A Warning (310) Illness is a warning. It is nature’s alarm, which awakens the slumbering individual To the necessity of preparing in advance for what is to come.
In a letter written anonymously to the American Journal of Medicine, a doctor gives a detailed account of a woman patient’s protracted illness when all efforts towards her recovery had failed. He tells of how tired she had become of her life, and of how he brought that life to an end: “I put a patient suffering from terminal cancer to sleep forever to end her misery.”*
Man considers death to be the end of life. But it is, in reality, the event which launches man on his migration from the temporary, to the eternal life. It is the decisive moment when man, after the expiry of his time of trial, is faced with the results. In the words of a hadith, it is the Great Day of Reckoning, when man will appear before his Maker to be judged.
There is no doubt that illness is a great affliction. But if looked at as a great reality of life, it should be regarded as more of a blessing. This is because it brings one a timely reminder that the final stage of life is near at hand. It also alerts one to any laxity of which one may have been guilty. It is, therefore, nature’s alarm which awakens the slumbering individual to the necessity of preparing in advance for what is to come. Illness, in that sense, is a warning. But the ignorant, who take illness purely as an affliction, remain unaware, to the very last, of the lesson that it is designed to bring them.
* This incident was referred to in an article entitled, ‘Knowledge Explosion’ by Mr. Rajendra Prabhu (a resident of Washington) published in the Hindustan Times of April 7, 1989.
