DEATH: A POSITIVE REMINDER

DEATH: A POSITIVE REMINDER Live a Fruitful Life PAKISTAN’S legendary former captain and batsman, Hanif Mohammad, who held the record for the longest innings in Test cricket, passed away on August 11, 2016. Hanif Mohammad played for the Pakistani cricket team in 55 Test matches between 1952–53 and 1969–70. At his peak he was considered one of the best batsmen in the world. ICC’s chief executive David Richardson paid tribute to the cricketer in these words: “His contribution to the game has been enormous and one can only imagine the kind of impact his batting had on others over the years. Hanif’s triple-century against the West Indies was a legendary innings and unsurprisingly he was one of the original inductees into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.” Hanif Mohammad had been undergoing treatment for respiratory complications from his lung cancer in Karachi’s Aga Khan hospital. His son Shoaib Mohammad said, “My father was in a lot of pain in the last few weeks but didn’t give up, such was his fighting spirit.” There is a verse in the Quran which reminds everyone that no one is so powerful that they can prevent the onset of death. The Quran says: “Every soul shall taste death” (3: 185). However powerful a person might be, in comparison to death, every hero becomes a zero. Death gives one this message: ‘Even if you are a super-achiever, when it comes to death, there is no exception at all.’ Death is the greatest reminder, which makes every person a man ‘cut-to-size’. Ignoring the reality of death is not possible for any human being. Every death admonishes a person to live in this world with modesty. The Prophet of Islam said, “Remember death much, which demolishes all desires.” (al-Tirmidhi). This means that the thought of death serves to make a person a realist. It is the reality of death that helps one to come out of wishful thinking. Death makes a person distinguish between ‘what he is’ and ‘what he is not’. If a person focuses on ‘what he is’, it would bring about realism in his thinking. On the contrary, if a person is governed by thoughts of ‘what he is not’, he would develop an unrealistic approach to life. Death gives one this message: ‘Even if you are a super-achiever, when it comes to death, there is no exception at all.’