An Experience of Doomsday
Man builds a life for himself in this world. Death ushers him into another world where he is totally alone and deprived of all resources. Wise is one who makes the necessary preparations for death in advance and makes himself worthy of Paradise in the Hereafter.
When one evening late in November 1984, my plane landed at the Casablanca airport, I was alone. The experience I had of that visit was a strange one. I had been invited to participate in a conference, and an air ticket had been sent to me, but I did not have the address of the venue of the programme. Nor did I have any contact number for the conference organizers. When I came out of the plane, there was no one to receive me. I wanted to make enquiries from the people at the airport, but found that everyone spoke only French, and understood neither Arabic nor English. For some time I felt I had become a displaced person. There was no one to help me. I had no place to stay and no arrangements seemed to have been made for me. I felt so alone and helpless. It all seemed very strange.
I anxiously ran around here and there, without finding anyone to help me. I eventually emerged from the airport, still baffled about what I should do and where I should go.
After a while, I saw a man walking on the other side of the road. He crossed the road and came up to me, and started talking to me in Urdu. He told me that he was a Pakistani Muslim and was doing a job there. He listened to my tale of woe and sympathized with me. He knew French and took me to the police post at the airport. He talked to the officials in French and was told that they had no information about this. However, they were able to tell me that there was a conference going on in Casablanca’s hotel “Safeer”. Then the Pakistani Muslim said that he could drop me at the hotel Safeer. He did so and then left me to my own resources. I still felt bewildered but as soon as I entered the hotel, I met some people from the conference who knew me. They told me a room had been reserved for me. They gave me the hotel card and took me to room number 1207.
The experience I had that day gave me a foretaste of doomsday. After man is born in this world, he lives with his parents and relatives. He finds himself living in a world where he has been provided with a complete life support system by nature. He builds a house for himself and constructs a world that meets all of his necessary requirements.
Everyone lives a free satisfactory life in this world he has made for himself. But suddenly something very serious happens. It is the event of death. Death separates man completely from the world he has made for himself, and ushers him into another world where all those things among which he was living his life and which fulfilled all his needs, are taken away from him. His friends and relatives are separated from him. In this other world too man is totally alone, deprived of any resources he could fall back on.
The situation in which I found myself in 1984 was an earthly experience which showed me an image of the world to come after death. At some time or another such an image of the next world is shown to everyone so that he may be alerted to what the situation will be after death. Wise is one who heeds this forewarning and makes the necessary preparations for it in advance.
