DEATH: A POSITIVE REMINDER
Live a Fruitful Life
PAKISTAN’S legendary former captain and batsman, Hanif Mohammad, who held the record for the longest innings in Test cricket, passed away on August 11, 2016. Hanif Mohammad played for the Pakistani cricket team in 55 Test matches between 1952–53 and 1969–70. At his peak he was considered one of the best batsmen in the world.
ICC’s chief executive David Richardson paid tribute to the cricketer in these words: “His contribution to the game has been enormous and one can only imagine the kind of impact his batting had on others over the years. Hanif’s triple-century against the West Indies was a legendary innings and unsurprisingly he was one of the original inductees into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.”
Hanif Mohammad had been undergoing treatment for respiratory complications from his lung cancer in Karachi’s Aga Khan hospital. His son Shoaib Mohammad said, “My father was in a lot of pain in the last few weeks but didn’t give up, such was his fighting spirit.” There is a verse in the Quran which reminds everyone that no one is so powerful that they can prevent the onset of death. The Quran says: “Every soul shall taste death” (3: 185). However powerful a person might be, in comparison to death, every hero becomes a zero. Death gives one this message: ‘Even if you are a super-achiever, when it comes to death, there is no exception at all.’
Death gives one this message: ‘Even if you are a super-achiever, when it comes to death, there is no exception at all.’
Death is the greatest reminder, which makes every person a man ‘cut-to-size’. Ignoring the reality of death is not possible for any human being. Every death admonishes a person to live in this world with modesty.
The Prophet of Islam said, “Remember death much, which demolishes all desires.” (al-Tirmidhi). This means that the thought of death serves to make a person a realist. It is the reality of death that helps one to come out of wishful thinking. Death makes a person distinguish between ‘what he is’ and ‘what he is not’. If a person focuses on ‘what he is’, it would bring about realism in his thinking. On the contrary, if a person is governed by thoughts of ‘what he is not’, he would develop an unrealistic approach to life.
A person’s greatest strength is in developing a realistic approach. It is realism that makes a person a right thinker. One who is a right thinker is in a position to do successful planning for his work; no one can place obstacles in the path to his success. Remembering death is the greatest source of wisdom for any person—it guarantees that one’s planning will be realistic.
A survey shows that 151,600 people die every day all over the world. This fact is a warning, which makes a person think that perhaps his name is included in the list of people who are to die the next day. This realization creates a sense of urgency. A person thus decides that he should do today what he has postponed for the next day. There is no more stronger incentive than the thought of death to keep a person active on a permanent basis.
Remembering death is the greatest source of wisdom for any person—it guarantees that one’s planning will be realistic.
Moreover, thinking about death prevents a person from committing evil. This is because all evil planning has value only as long as one is alive. But when one is not sure of being alive the next day, it is also doubtful that one would be able to complete one’s planning. Death is thus the greatest teacher for everyone.
Apparently, death is a negative event. However, in terms of the result it works as the greatest positive factor in the life of a person.
Tolerance
The act of tolerance is not a matter
of compulsion; it results naturally
from the doer being of an elevated
moral caliber.