Old Age, a Reminder

The Quran (35:37) says: “There they will cry out, ‘Lord, take us out! We shall do good deeds, and behave differently from the way we used to.’ But He will answer, ‘Did We not make your life long enough to take warning if you were going to? The warner did come to you. So now have a taste of the punishment.’ Wrongdoers will have no supporter.”

There are many reports in the books of Hadith with the same sort of message. In a hadith it is said that the person who gets a long life or old age will not be in a position to present any excuses to God on the Day of Judgment.

An individual passes through several life-stages: childhood, youth, middle-age and, finally, old age. Old age is the final stage in this world for anyone because after that comes the stage of death. In this sense, old age is a prior notice of the arrival of death. In old age, a person’s organs become weak, and some of them even stop functioning completely. These developments tell a person that the time of his death has come near. They are a compulsory reminder of death. Old age leads one to stand at the rim of the grave.

If a person’s mind is awakened, on reaching old age he will know that very soon the time will come when he will die and will be made to appear before God to account for his life on Earth. In this way, the experience of old age can jolt a person out of complacency and lead him to develop consciousness of the Hereafter. Old age tells him that his journey in this world is drawing to an end. Now he will compulsorily have to enter the next period of his life and stand before God Almighty on the Day of Judgment.

The most unwise person is he who experiences old age but still refuses to reflect on his impending death and the Hereafter and continues to live in heedlessness and dies in that state, too.