AN UNDISCOVERED REALITY

Journey Towards Death

DEATH is the most known event of human life, yet it is an undiscovered reality. People see or hear of this regularly, but everyone takes it as external news. No one applies it personally. What is the reason? The reason is the ‘now-based’ culture. This culture is so common that everyone, religious or secular, is living in their ‘now’. It is rare to find a person who lives for tomorrow.

Animals do not possess a mind like humans. Animals are born today and live for today. But a human being has a special mind. The concept of tomorrow is human mind’s unique feature. All the planning of a human being is based on tomorrow. Without tomorrow, there is no planning, civilization or activity.

Unawareness of the world Hereafter leads one to plan only for the present. Seldom can you find a person who plans keeping the world Hereafter in mind. They talk of the world Hereafter, but it is mere lip service, not the result of a deeper realization.

It needs an intellectual campaign to make people aware of the reality of death and the Hereafter. Death is the gate through which we enter the next world. But man is oblivious of this significant reality which he should know more than anything else.

The American evangelist Billy Graham has reported a very thoughtful incident. Once he received a message from a very important person, who had requested him to come and meet him urgently. Billy Graham cancelled all engagements and went to meet him. Face to face in his office, the person said without any introduction: ‘You see I am an old man. Life has lost all meaning. I am going to take a fateful leap into the unknown. Young man, can you give me a ray of hope?’ (The Secret of Happiness, Billy Graham, 1955)

This is not just a story of a statesman; rather it is the story of every man and woman. Every person, consciously or unconsciously, is obsessed with this thought. Man’s average life expectancy is about 70 years. This is why every person, sometime or the other, thinks: What will be my life after seventy years? What will happen to me after death? What will happen to me when I leave this world and go to another unknown world?

When his son died, these same thoughts were expressed by the wellknown singer Jagjit Singh (1941-2011), in these words: Chitthi na koi sandesh, jane wo kaun sa desh jahan tum chale gaye. (You left no letter and no message. No one knows the world to which you have gone.) These lines do not only represent the feelings of a father at the death of his son, rather it is the case of every human being—if he is alive, then this is his feeling about himself and if he has died, then these are the feelings of the relatives whom he has left behind.

Almost all thinkers of history were obsessed with trying to explain this phenomenon. Everyone tried to discover the answer to this question. However, every answer failed to provide a satisfactory explanation to this phenomenon. In 1935 Alexis Carrel wrote a book Man, The Unknown. From another aspect the theme of this book was: Destination, The Unknown. Even today this destination has remained unknown and undiscovered.

Having spent my entire life in trying to find an answer to this question led me to the discovery that the only rational answer has been given in the Quran. According to the Quranic explanation, man was born as an eternal creature. But, his life was divided into two parts: the pre-death period and the post-death period. Man’s life is like an iceberg. Only a tip of his life lies in the present world, the rest of it lies in the world Hereafter. Man should strive to his utmost to prepare himself for the next world, so that in the Hereafter he can achieve what he could not in the present world.

The question of life after death concerns everyone, consciously in some cases and unconsciously in most cases. Answering this question is the greatest human service. Those who engage in this work will be held as the greatest benefactor of modern human history. Is there any taker for this task?