THE HEREAFTER

“Maulana Sahib, you don’t know how bad our life is! Tomorrow I have to be at the airport before sunrise to welcome a foreign dignitary. Not only shall I have to deprive myself of sleep, but I shall have to welcome him with smiles—and that in spite of the fact that he is somebody I despise!” This simple anecdote shows there are two sides to the lives of those in high office. They enjoy power, prestige and the many perquisites that go with them but there is also an unenviable side to their lives. If you look deep into some of these ‘great’ men, you will discover that they achieve their high positions because they persuade themselves to be content with triviality. If outwardly they lead glamorous existences, it is because, privately, they stoop to hypocrisy, sycophancy, opportunism and unscrupulousness. This double life is the price they pay to bolster their self-interest. Most people unthinkingly follow the trends of the time. Every ‘great’ person has two sides to one's life—one of brilliance and glitter, the other dark and soulless. The power and glamour which one achieves has something animal-like about it when one agrees to kill what is human in oneself. Just as there are two sides to every life in this world, there is a similar duality to every act in relation to this world and the Hereafter. One aspect of each act is our acceptance of it as what it is seen to be in this world. The other aspect is what results from this act in terms of the Hereafter. Imam Ahmad narrates that the Caliph Umar once said: ‘No drink of milk or honey is better than swallowing one’s anger.’ Overcoming one’s anger is an extremely bitter experience, but in the Hereafter the result of doing so is sweeter by far than milk and honey. Today we reap the worldly fruits of our actions! Tomorrow in the Hereafter, we shall have to face the results of our deeds and misdeeds. Today, we can see only one aspect of our actions— that of immediate pleasure or gain—but the Day of Resurrection will place us in a position to see much more. Just as a person standing on top of a wall can look down on both sides, so shall we be able to see both aspects of the truth. We will get to watch our entire history unreel before us like a film and witness the consequences of our own worldly actions. ‘Then,’ as the Quran says, ‘shall each soul know what it has sent forward (to the Hereafter) and what it has kept back (in the world behind)’ (82: 5). Whatever was done for worldly reasons will be left It is because life in this world is intended to be a testing-ground that the world of the Hereafter remains beyond our reach.