Foreword
The Quran describes one basic quality of the believers thus: “Those who believe love God most.” (2:165) The Believers mentioned in the Quran in this verse are those who have discovered God at the level of realization. All their feelings and emotions will be associated with God alone. Their hearts and minds will focus solely on God.
Owing to his limitations man cannot see God in this present world, but he experiences God’s mercy and blessings at every moment, and this experience is the real source of his love of God. Everything man has received in this world is a blessing from God. The more one thinks of divine blessings, the more one’s love of God will increase. The source of the love of God is the discovery of blessings and not the sight (deedar) of the Benefactor (God).
Who has created man? God! Who has given man great abilities of different kinds? God! Who has created an exceptional planet like the Earth for man? It is God alone! Who has created the life support system for man? God! Who has provided all the needs of man? Again it is God. Who has given man such a mind that, living on this planet Earth, he can encompass the entire universe? It is God alone!
Realization of God is the discovery of the Benefactor who is the source of all blessings. When man attains this realization in the real sense, the love of God wells up within him. Every fibre of his being is enlightened with divine love. Obedience to God is, without doubt, the demand of faith, but it would be an underestimation of the love of God if it is taken only in the sense of obedience. Obedience is only a legal description of the relationship with God, whereas love entails man’s entire existence being moulded in the remembrance of God. Man comes to acknowledge God in the perfect sense when it is with the whole of his being.
Faith in God is for man to discover God to the extent of loving Him more than anything else. The Quran says that “those who believe love God most.” (2:165) One who loves God the most is one who has made God his object of worship. Real love for God will find expression in many ways. Even uttering such words as praise (hamd), thanksgiving (shukr), and remembrance (zikr), as we find in the Quran, is also an expression of our love for God. It would be right to say that Alham-do-lillah, praise be to God, signifies love for God (Alhub-bu-lillah). Praising God means loving God. Gratitude to God also means loving God. Remembering God also indicates a strong love and affection for God.
What is Paradise? Paradise is another name for eternal life in the neighbourhood of God (66:11). In the world before death man lives in the neighbourhood of God at the level of mind and feeling. After death his living in the world of God will be a reality.
God, without doubt, is the source of all virtues. That is why man can find true peace only in the neighbourhood of God. Anything short of that cannot become a source of real peace for him. The present world, in actual fact, is a selection ground for the right kind of people. Here those people are being selected who in respect to their virtues or character are worthy of being lodged in the neighbourhood of God. Their thinking, activities, feelings, behaviour and dealings must all pass the ethical criterion which is required to become God’s neighbour. It is only people such as these who will be selected for this honour. This selection will be based on the records kept by the angels of man’s deeds.
The good fortune of finding a place in God’s neighbourhood in the eternal life of the Hereafter will be based totally on merit. God’s neighbourhood is like a universal garden. In this universal garden, only those will find a place who measure up to the divine criterion. Anything short of this will not be sufficient to guarantee a place in this universal garden. Those selected for Paradise are the ones who have made God their supreme concern in the life of this world. Their thinking and feelings have all been devoted to God. Their mornings as well as their evenings have been filled with the remembrance of God. These are the fortunate souls who will be selected to live in the neighbourhood of God.
What is life? A journey towards death. What is death? A leap towards an uncertain future. One who realizes this reality will undergo a revolution in his thinking. Both life and death will become meaningful to him. His days and nights will not be subservient to his desires, but will be subservient rather to the will of His Creator who has established the system of life and death. He will start living not for himself but for God. He will live in this world but will become like a creature of the Hereafter. One who knows only this life, knows nothing. One who knows the stages that he will face after death is truly the knowledgeable one. For the entire span of life is but a brief moment. The ultimate experience to be faced by man is the experience of death. Life is a journey which is ultimately going to reach the stage of death. Death is not the end of life, but is rather the beginning of a very long stage of life.
The actual importance of life is that it is a period for prior preparation to face the crucial moment of death. The right thing for man to do is to understand this reality of life. He should not engage himself in worldly matters to the extent that he forgets the stages he has to face after death.
Man must live in this world in such a way that when he is faced with death it comes to him like something that he already knows, a recognisable event, rather than an accident which all of a sudden he is confronted with and for which he had made no prior preparation. Wise is he whose mind is alert about death, whose actions are planned in accordance with what is beneficial for him in the period after death, whose life is Hereafter-oriented rather than worldly-oriented.
The feeling and prayer of a believer at that moment of death should be: “When the time to depart from the people of this world comes, I want to be near to God Almighty. When I have to leave the company of human beings, I want to be blessed with the company of angels. When death separates me from my people, let me not be left all alone but let me find the blessing of a nobler assembly in the company of God. Let my journey of death become a journey from a lower to a higher level of being.” This prayer is not just a set of words. It is a verbal expression of the internal feelings of a true believer.
Wahiduddin Khan
August 6, 2020
New Delhi, India
