Spirit of Islam, July-Aug 2023

A successful person is one who thinks more about death than life and considers everything he receives as a gift from the Almighty. Using life-support system, man makes great progress in this world. But he does not acknowledge the Bestower of all these blessings. As a result, he consciously or unconsciously comes to feel that he himself was the owner of the world he had created for himself. But when old age or death comes, all his glory disappears as if it had never existed. Maulana Wahiduddin Khan writes, “In the prime of his youth, a person passed away. The first time I met him, he appeared perfectly healthy and fit. Later, he was diagnosed with cancer. Despite treatment, the disease progressed, and he became bedridden. In the final stage, he had turned into a mere skeleton. In those days, whenever someone visited him, he would say, ‘Don’t think about me; think about yourself. Be grateful for having a healthy body. You eat, you drink, and you walk on the ground. All these things are God’s blessings. He can take away this blessing whenever He wants, and then you will be left with nothing.’ When a person receives a healthy body at birth, it appears that this healthy body belongs to him. Therefore, he takes it for granted without realizing that this healthy body was entirely a gift from God. He should acknowledge this gift; he should bow down before God. This is the test of life. A successful person is one who thinks more about death than life and considers everything he receives as a gift from the Almighty. Such a person has succeeded in the test. On the contrary, the person who does not acknowledge God and forgets about death is the one who has failed the test. For one person, there is eternal success, and for the other, there is eternal failure.” o