A POSITIVE CONCEPT OF DEATH
Preparatory Period for Unending Rewards
IF you look up the word ‘death’ in the dictionary, you will find ‘death’ described as: Permanent cessation of life. This literal definition of death presents a negative picture of death. This means that a person is born as a perfect human being, but after living for a short period of time, his existence ends forever. All his desires and all his abilities are destroyed in such a way that it is not possible for these desires and abilities to come into existence again.
Islam, on the other hand, offers a positive outlook of life. According to Islam, death is not the end of life. Death marks the beginning of the second phase of human life.
Death gives a message of life, and this message is—do what you have to do today, because there will be no time left to do anything tomorrow.
According to Islam, a human being is created as an eternal creature, and then his lifespan is divided into two parts: pre-death period and post-death period. The pre-death period is a place of preparation and the post-death period is a place of reaping the permanent rewards, according to the kind of preparation.
According to this creation plan, a person should consider the life before death as a preparatory period and spend it perfectly and completely for preparation. It is because in the period of life that will come after death, one will not have any opportunity to act, but only to reap the rewards of one’s deeds. Death, in fact, gives a message of life, and this message is—do what you have to do today, because there will be no time left to do anything tomorrow.