ASK MAULANA

pollution are on the rise. With 95% of water resources polluted already, water resources are fast depleting. The water resources that exist are the only ones that exist. We cannot create more by ourselves. While a human being cannot even create a glass of water, there are millions of other things that have been bestowed to him by a Benefactor! To acknowledge and be grateful for these blessings is the highest duty of an individual. Religion serves as a reminder of this fact. If you do not acknowledge a glass of water, you have no right to drink it. Availing of blessings like food, water, air or sunlight has a price, that is, acknowledgement of the Giver. Those who do not perform this duty should remember that they cannot evade accountability. How should one deal with the crises in life? Once the Prophet was travelling from Makkah to Taif with 12,000 people. They reached a valley which had a narrow pass and the issue was how it should be crossed. The Prophet gave a solution and told his Companions to change their formation from wide across to narrow or inline. When a new situation emerges, one should think and reassess the matter. A human being possesses pre-crisis thinking which fails at the time of crisis, therefore he is required to develop a post-crisis thinking to deal with the emerging situation. When the Prophet’s opponents in Makkah eventually decided to kill him, the Prophet had two options; either confront his opponents stating that Makkah was also his homeland and he had the right to live in it and as a consequence die fighting for the cause. The other option was to leave Makkah and migrate to another city. The Prophet chose the latter option, thereby demonstrating how one should develop postcrisis thinking to resolve a situation of crisis. How does thinking about death transform a person? People in the present-day are being caught up in the culture of ‘right here, right now’ and are unable to think about death. If a person is able to do so, a new thinking would emerge in him and he would strive to prepare himself for the eternal world of the life Hereafter. Death would become a reminder to him of the life to come. He would be cautious about his words, thoughts and dealings with people. His concern would be the development of a sublime character so that in the Hereafter he can be selected as an inhabitant of the noble abode of Paradise. He would rise above the superficialities of the present world and become acquainted with the higher truths of life.