Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | The Sunday Guardian | August 30, 2015

The world beyond death is, as Arthur Koestler (19051983) put it, an "unknown country". We are all traveling towards that unknown country. The strangest and most mysterious event of our lives is death. Everyone is anxious to know what will become of them after death.

The American evangelist, Billy Graham, has written a book called The Secret of Happiness. He writes in this book that he once received an urgent message from a famous political leader, who wanted him to meet him at the earliest opportunity.

When Billy Graham reached the politician's residence, he was ushered into a separate room. There the politician addressed him in a heart-rending tone. "I am an old man," he said, "life has lost all meaning. I am ready to take a fateful leap into the unknown. Young man, can you give me a ray of hope?"

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It was, indeed, only a man of religion who could give him an answer.

Death is lying in wait for everyone. In one's youth one tends to forget death, but in the end the hand of fate holds sway. In old age, when one's strength is on the wane, one realizes the imminence of death; one is moved to wonder that lies in store for one in the hereafter; one searches for a ray of hope which can illuminate the world one will have to face after death.

It is this ray of hope that God's prophets have come to the world to provide. The prophets have taught man that there is another world - one that is both eternal and ideal- after death. Those who will be admitted to this perfect world in the afterlife are those who, in this life on earth, prove themselves worthy of it by their righteous actions.

This message has been summed in these words of the Quran: "And God calls unto the home of peace." (10:25)