Towards
the Noblest Companion
A verbal expression of the internal feelings of a true believer: “When the time to depart from this world comes, I want to be near to God Almighty, in the company of angels and nobler companions. Let this journey for me become from a lower to a higher level of being.”
Chapter 66 of the Quran tells us that when the king of ancient Egypt issued an order for his believing wife to be executed, she prayed thus to God: ‘My Lord, build me a house in nearness to You in Paradise.’ (66:11) This is a prayer coming from the lips of a true believer. This prayer found expression in prophetic words from the lips of the Prophet of Islam when he breathed his last: ‘My Lord, the Noblest Companion.’ (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith No. 4463)
Both these prayers are similar in nature. The first prayer is in the words of a believer and the second prayer is in the words of a prophet.
Both these prayers in actual fact are an expression of the feelings of a believer in relation to death. This means that when the moment of death comes to a believer, his feelings may take the form of a prayer of this kind. At that moment the feeling of a believer 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. The desire of a true believer is that the next stage of life should be far better than the present one. He wants the blessings of God which he had in this present testing ground, to be given to him in the world after death in the far higher form of God’s eternal blessings. He desires death to become a means of leaving this imperfect world and entering the perfect world of the Hereafter.
