ON OLD AGE

Age-wise Old or Wise Old Age

In the Quran, God tells us:

But He will answer, ‘Did We not make your life long enough to take warning if you were going to? [...]’

(35:37)

ACCORDING to a Hadith, the one who has reached old age or who has lived long will have no excuse to present before God. Human beings pass through various stages. Firstly, childhood; then, youth; and then, old age. Old age is the last possible stage in this world for anyone, because it is followed by death.

In this sense, old age is a prior notice of one’s death. In old age, all of the organs of the body become weak. Some of them even stop functioning. This is an indication and a mandatory reminder of one’s impending death. Old age leads one to stand at the edge of one’s grave.

If a person’s mind is awakened, when he reaches old age he will think, ‘Now, very soon, the time will come when I shall die and shall appear before God so that I may be held accountable for my life. In this way, old age can shake up a person and make him conscious of the Hereafter.

Old age reminds him that his journey in this world is almost over, and that now he has to enter the next period of life and face the Divine court on the Day of Judgment.

Without doubt, he is the most unfortunate person who lives to see old age but fails to draw lessons from it about what will soon follow. He remained heedless of this, and died in the state of heedlessness. There could be nothing more tragic than this.