A Muslim’s attempt at escaping death

When a Muslim is born, an elder of the family says the azaan in his ear. He lives his life and when he dies, a funeral prayer is held to which, unlike traditional prayers, there is no azaan. The rationale behind these two phenomenons, some say, is to remind people that man’s life on earth is the length between the azaan and its subsequent prayer. I read somewhere that the uncertainty of life is like a man walking blind folded towards the edge of a cliff. He doesn’t know which step shall be his last. Death is a subject that has fascinated me for the past 7–8 years, ever since my favorite paternal uncle passed away from cancer. There is always so much finality attached to it, the loss always so unbearable, and the process always so sudden as if not enough time was given to the dearly departed soul to spend with us or for us with them.

In recent times, with all the mayhem caused by the war on terror and the continuous exposure that comes from the freedom of an irresponsible media, death has become an everyday thing and much more real. People die every day, some in car crashes, some due to street crime, in war zones, some in hospitals, some due to malnutrition, most due to over indulgence. Cancer itself, alone, will soon inflict itself on 1 out of every two people and it is a disease that has quickly and erroneously become synonymous with death.

People go away every day. Maybe the disconnect created by the constant barrage of morbid information descending on us has made us forget that what happens to all these people will very well happen to us. That, one day, we too will be lying in a 7 feet by 3 feet beautifully dug up hole in the ground. Our relatives and loved ones will be the first to step into the grave to lower us into it and will also be the first to throw mud over our faces, amply demonstrating the real worth of our worldly relationship. For the dead, a new phase of their journey has begun and their ability to do anything to hurt themselves or redeem themselves has been taken away, now they are at the mercy of whatever their deeds were and the legacy that they left behind which can work for them or against them. For them, their worldly profit and loss statement has just been sealed and is now being audited. As a Muslim, that is the belief system we are expected to live and die by.

For the rest of us the story continues. We have buried the dead; the immediate family is left to grieve while we go on with our worldly affairs. Having networked at funerals, we pursue the leads generated thereof, and we continue pushing it. We forget the basic importance of attending a funeral and the message that it contains. We totally miss out the symbolism that is present for us, those who are left to live another day, in every death. Having attended quite a few funerals, after seeing the earth close down on the dead human being lying inside the grave, I feel, we somehow forget to assimilate that every death represents a challenge as well as a blessing.

The blessing in it is something that I’ll explain first. If man were to live in perpetual fear of death, he would be paralyzed from doing anything and would just wait for death from the moment of birth. He would be over whelmed by this particular notion and not be able to do much as is the trait of those who live under the perpetual fear of impending doom. Basic things such as food and water would be difficult for him to swallow and every day would be filled with self pity and remorse. Possibly one of the biggest blessings by Allah SWT is the fact that he has made our brain in such a way that it only allows us to dwell on the prospect of death fleetingly.

The challenge, on the other hand, is to remember that the cold hand of death can reach out for us at any time and not forget that we have to go away, that we too are mortal. It can come with horns blaring in the form of a dread disease, or suddenly like the head lights of a car coming out of nowhere or something falling on the top of your head or for most Pakistanis, a random bullet to a vital organ. The thought and fact that it can come and get us is something that we should actively appreciate as we go through our daily motions. Most successful people do this on a regular basis and it spurs them on to higher achievement as they are constantly running the good race against time. One particular set of people is the Freemasons.

With each evolution in the Freemason life cycle, certain practices are added in the daily routines of the practitioners to increase their experience. One such practice is the practice of having a Chamber of Reflection. In that chamber, amongst other pertinent things, are a picture of the grim reaper, a human skull and an hourglass. It all may sound morbid but all the things there have a purpose behind their presence and in some way complement these three. These symbols represent the mortality of man and a signal that time is running out. It is a chamber designed and decorated to take the practitioner out of his daily chores and bring him to a place of introspection of the role he is to play in this transitory life.

If the freemasons are successful then I believe it is because of this one quality, the ability to give up Facebook, TV and other distractions, even for a little bit and think about what this life is all about. Is it really about going to work, coming home to our family, eating and sleeping without some higher purpose or calling? Were we really created only to eat, sleep and die? As an advanced species, is that all there is? People, who reflected, transcended the boundaries of time and space. They achieved more in a year than most can achieve in a lifetime and they didn’t give up anything. They just thought, organized and prioritized and concentrated on doing God’s work on earth and they did this by not pulling down others but by pulling mankind up. They did it by adding value to the world with the consciousness that God was holding them at a higher pedestal. They did it without hurting or letting down their fellow creations. They remembered God and He made sure that they would be remembered through the ages. They did it, knowing that in God’s eyes, all His creation are important and a person who saved a single life, it would be as if he had saved the whole of humanity.

As Muslims, we know that, despite all that its adherents and practitioners have done to tarnish its true meaning, Islam is a religion of peace, a religion of moderation and taking the middle ground is always an option preferred by the Prophet PBUH. Without going into details, if we are able to strike a balance between the blessing and the challenge that death represent, we should be able to make it through this life knowing that our life would have been well lived. After all, when you look at it, death is something to be looked forward to for someone who knows he has lived a righteous life, without abusing the trust of Allah SWT, in a way in which no other human being was emotionally or physically hurt. A person who can fully satiate himself with this feeling is one who is at peace and death is just the turnstile to the realm where he will collect on all the good that he has accrued.

As Dr. Allama Iqbal put it so eloquently:

You ask me for the signs of a man of faith?

When Death comes to him, he has a smile on his lips.

Finally, having read extensively on the subject, I find solace in the fact that I am not alone and that there are a few others like me who, unlike me, have been much more eloquent on the subject. Religion, also has nothing to do with it. Mr. Khushwant Singh, an Indian and a confirmed agnostic (if thats possible) is one of them and his book “Obituaries” provides a wonderful insight into some of the final moments of the lives of various famous personalities and their life and times. Indeed, his means of catharsis, while he was alive, had been to visit a graveyard or a funeral pyre whenever he felt burdened by the challenges that life presents and according to him, he always found peace. In it, he found a way to keep going and adding value.

I often hear people pray for a long, healthy and happy life. I wish they would also add the word “meaningful” to this prayer, because after all, what’s life if devoid of meaning?