WAMY - Philippines

Death is the most important event in the entire life of man, starting from the time when he was a fetus in his mother’s womb, and ending with the judgment of the Most High on the Day of Resurrection, stating that those of good faith and righteousness be favoured with eternal bliss, and those of disbelief and corruption with eternal torment.
 
The time of death is described to be the most important moment in the long journey of man, which is due to the following:

1. It is the beginning of shifting from the manifest tangible realm known by man and became familiar to him to a realm that is unseen in the first stage of life and became tangible in the new stage that commences with physical death, so that the spiritual Resurrection will take place. In this spiritual Journey, man sees; for the first time realms differing completely from those of the worldly life he had lived in their accustomed or discorded.

The next world differs entirely from this world in all-respects. In the next world man will meet the angels and live with his spirit in God’s bliss or torment. As for his body it will become carrion and then dust. He has an encounter with Munkar and Nakir, the two interrogating angels. The Trumpet shall be blown in due course, then followed by Resurrection, Gathering, Judgement, then scales and books in recorded are his intentions, actions, and sayings, then meeting with God and staying before him to receive the Divine Judgement ….etc.

2. At this moment – the moment of death – The dead person sees God’s angels and hears from them the decisive word, descending from Allah the Most High, the word that conveys to him either eternal bliss or eternal suffering. Had he got in possession the whole world at this moment and would be acceptable from him to sacrifice with it, or had he got in possession the earth and heaven full of gold and would be acceptable from him to give it in charity for hearing eternal word of pleasure and forgiveness from God at this moment, he would certainly have done so happily. In this respect the Qur’an says:

 “If the wrongdoers possessed all that is in the earth, and the like thereof in addition, they would seek to ransom themselves with it from the severe punishment on the Day of Judgement; but there shall appear to them from Allah that which they never thought of”. [Qur’an 39:47]
 

3. When man sees the angel of death and makes sure that he is shifted to the next world, rewarded for what he had done in his lifetime be it good or evil, even though it was an atom’s weight, he would wish to be delayed for one minute and allowed to offer the faith and deeds in which he sees his salvation from an inevitable perishing and suffering.

Such a delay is impossible at this moment, and no supplication nor cry will be useful then. No power on earth will ever be able to postpone this moment or enable the deceased to say or do anything beneficial to himself. It is over, and the messengers of God are there, the records of deeds are folded forever, and the moments of judgements and rewards have begun. To this the Qur’an says:

 “But when death comes to one of them he says: “My Lord return me, so that I shall do righteousness in that I neglected” No indeed! It is only a word he says, and there behind them is Barzakh (a barrier) until the day they shall be raised up.” [Qur’an 23:99-100]

The barrier may be referred to as the grave. For the dead are tortured in their graves until the day in which they are raised, which is the Day of Resurrection.

The linguistic meaning of al-Barzakh is (the Barrier). The grave is called the barrier because it separates the dead from the worldly life, which he will never return to, and separates him from the Hereafter in which he will not be capable of realizing his end and destiny.

4.  Everything the dead had collected during his lifetime, working hard, spending the nights and his life in storing and hoarding it; what he had grown of orchards and flourishing gardens; all what he had erected, be they houses, decorated palaces, all what he had been surrounded of servants, family and followers; all these will be seen by the dead when the angels of death come to him while he is in a state of regret, grief, anxiety and desperation. He has left all these bounties behind, absolutely deprived of what he had collected of wealth and adorned things. Only one thing man will be looking for at the moment of death, which he is certain that his salvation and happiness will be his reward after death. That is the righteous deed. Had he introduced it already, he would have not regretted what he had left, otherwise, he will certainly say:

 “Would that it had been; My wealth has not availed me. My power is gone from me.” [Qur’an 69:27-29]

5. The dead’s regret, catastrophe and disaster increase when he denies the Hereafter, when he looks arrogant with his behavior towards the Religion of Allah or when he believes in heresies and superstitions that deprived him of sound faith and straight path that should be in harmony with Book and the Sunnah.

Such a type of man did not expect another life after death, or he imagined it, but because of his arrogance, he thought that he is right and the others were wrong, depending on illusions, imaginations, or following those who went astray or those who earned God’s wrath regardless of reflection or research, or being misled by his surrender to the devils of human beings and the jinn. In all these things he is refusing the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of Prophet.

Who death comes, reality is so uncovered that the dead sees things different from what he had expected. He will be surprised that all his measures were wrong and all his facts were false and forgery.  Conceiving these and the like, the Qur’an says:

 “Say: “Shall I tell you who will be the greatest losers in their deeds? Those whose striving goes astray in the life of this world while they deem that they are working good deeds” [Qur’an 18:103-104]

Again, the Qur’an says:

 “And there will appear before them from God that they would never have thought of”. [Qur’an 39:47]

6. At last, but not the least, I can say: The moment of death is a partition between an age, how long it be, it does not exceed one hundred and fifty years, which is considered nil besides the thousands of years in the grave, and fifty thousand years, on the Day of Judgement. Then to an endless in a bliss that cannot be described or suffering that can not be imagined.

In such a short age, the destiny of the eternal future is specified. The destiny future is not stated during whole worldly life, but in some little years. It could be a few days, or an hour or less an hour, in which man may repent, regret his sins and implore Allah. Consequently, he gets rid of his previous wrongdoings, gains God’s pleasure at the moment of his death and expect an eternal bliss in future. What a great happiness that will be available to all and what an eternal future in which man specifies his destiny in a few minutes? Exalted be Allah who said:

 “He who fears Allah will certainly take heed, but the most wretched will turn away from it. The one who shall suffer in the greatest fire. In which he shall neither die nor live”. [Qur’an 87:10-13]

Therefore, for all these issues and others, the moment of death is the most important time in the journey of man.