Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Sunday Guardian, October 28, 2018

Every affair should be looked at in its eternal context. A "guard" may give one temporary support in this world, but when one reaches the next world, there will be no one to lend a helping hand.

If one keeps in mind that one is on the way to the hereafter, then one will consider everything which will become worthless there as worthless now, no matter how great a worldly price it may seem to command. One will give weight only to those things which will be of consequence in the next world, no matter how inconsequential they may seem in the world.

In this world, one may have command of impressive words which one uses to defy truth; but in the next world one will find oneself lost for words.

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One may wield one's power unjustly, content that one's victims will never be able to avenge one's wrongs; but in the next world one will be divested of all power.

Beguiled by wealth, one may become proud in this world, but in the next world one will have nothing to be proud of; one will have left one's wealth behind in the world.

This is the basic difference between a man of true faith and a disbeliever. A disbeliever lives on earth as if he is going to stay here forever, while the hallmark of true faith is the belief that one is on the way to the next world.

Basically, then, the distinction between belief and disbelief is a psychological one; but these two different attitudes to life make for vastly different practical lives. One should constantly live with a sense of responsibility of one's thoughts, actions and deeds. Whatever a person does in this world will not be lost at his death, rather he will have to be accountable to it in full in the world Hereafter.