Death and it’s rites in Islam
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Channel: Mirza Yawar Baig
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers discuss the concept of death and the importance of settling accounts and rewarding individuals for their actions. They stress the importance of preparing for death and being aware of the natural and spiritual aspects of life, as well as reciting the holy Bible and putting a recitation near the person to strengthen their connection with Allah. The speakers also emphasize the importance of mourning the natural death of a person in Islam and preparing for it in a temporary and real death.AI Generated Transcript ©
Welcome to the presentation
on death and its rights in Islam.
I titled it
preparing for the certainty because this is something
which is absolutely certain
to happen no matter what else you might
believe in.
We cannot and nobody denies death because we
know it's real.
We also know that one day it will
come to us. The,
purpose of this presentation is primarily for,
health care providers who are not Muslim
and who might need to be familiarized with
what,
health care and hospice care
people,
might face,
when they are with a Muslim patient,
in their last days,
and what must be done
when the patient,
passes away.
I'm trying to cover
all the
questions that I have,
been asked in this matter
from my different friends in the health care
and hospice care
fields.
And, so therefore,
please feel free also once you when you
watch this video to post any questions that
you might have, in the,
on the video, and then I will do
my best to answer them for you as
well. The first and foremost thing to understand
as far as the Islamic perspective of death
is concerned is that death is not the
end.
But actually, it is the beginning of another
phase of life, another way of being.
Death is the movement from this life to
another
life. From the Adam or Shahada,
from the life and the world of
perception,
what we feel, what we see,
to the Alawwal Akhirah, to
the or the Alawwal Bazakh,
which is
the world of the hereafter,
which is called Aqirah.
This movement is death. Death is the door
through which you pass,
and,
you go into another way of being
from the world of the living to the
world of the living in another shape or
form.
Therefore,
no matter who dies, a practicing Muslim who
understands what is happening will obviously be sad
because of the parting,
the pain of parting
from somebody who we loved.
But there is no despair, and there's no
breaking down completely of
of a person,
because they know that, this is a journey.
This is something that
was predestined. It is something that had to
happen, and this is something that will happen
also to me, and we believe that when
we go into the,
into the Aksara, into the other world, that
we will meet our family and,
all the all the,
the other Muslims who passed before us.
Islam is the worship
of Allah,
God
Almighty, the glorious and magnificent. Allah is His
personal,
specific name. And you will find, especially
my Christian friends, you will find if you
go into,
if you look at the,
the the Arabic Bibles,
especially those in the in the holy land,
in the Orthodox Church,
everywhere it says God in
the,
in in the Bible that we use here,
the Saint James version or or whichever,
there it says Allah.
Because this is the name of God, Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Allah, the glorious and the magnificent.
The word of Allah, the speech of Allah
is the Quran,
which is the revealed word of Allah. This
is not the first time it happened, but
this is the last time that it happened.
The Quran
is revelation. It is the word of Allah,
the speech of Allah as I mentioned to
you.
Allah spoke also to other prophets before the
last of them, Muhammad, peace be upon him.
He spoke to Abraham. He spoke to Moses.
He spoke to Jesus. He spoke to,
in in in when I speak, I mean,
directly as well as through
the angel, Jibril, Gabriel.
And, so we believe as Muslims that
the books of Abraham, the soul of Abraham,
the,
the Torah,
the Torah of Moses,
the Injeel, the gospel,
of, Jesus.
All of these are divine books from the
same source, which is Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and so also is the Quran.
The Quran has been preserved
completely and exactly the way it was revealed
in its original language
from the 1st day, 1471
years ago.
Today
we are here
in March of 2024.
So 1471
years
back,
the last revelation, the Quran
was started,
and it has been preserved exactly
without any deviation, without any,
alteration,
without any change,
and it is preserved in its original
language of revelation, which is Arabic.
This
was sent to his messenger, to the messenger
of Allah, Muhammad
peace be upon him. And,
it contains,
among other things, it contains
a way of life of how to live
in this world,
in a way which is compassionate, which is
based on justice,
and that is called Islam.
Why do we need to know about death?
Because nobody comes back to tell us
what happens after death.
Even the people who believe in in car
in reincarnation
now Muslim do not believe in reincarnation.
We believe that this life is a one
way street, so you better drive carefully when
you when you're on it. You're not coming
back. So therefore but even the ones who
believe that you are coming back, they believe
that you come back, you get reincarnated in
another form, either as another form of life
or as another human being.
But you do not have any idea,
and nobody ever says that a person who
got reincarnated
comes back and tells us what it is,
what life after death is like. Right?
We do not believe in reincarnation.
We we do not we believe that once
you go, you go.
You don't return, it's a one way street
and you go from one form of life
to another form of life and now you
are in a different world.
And therefore, if you want to know what's
happening or what will
happen after death,
the only one
who can tell us what happens after death
is the one who does not die, and
that is Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Allah yukayyuk
He is the one who is alive and
He is the one who is established
and He does not die, and therefore He
is the one who can tell us what
happens after death.
The time of death
is fixed. In Islam, we believe that we
all come with
with an expiry date, quite literally.
Now imagine,
that you have boarded a train,
and,
there are a whole bunch of people with
you, in the compartment,
you make friends, you have a relationship with
them, and so on.
You love them and you hate them or
whatever, you fight with them,
you know, there's a lot going on in
the train.
What you find that every once in a
while when this train stops, some of those
people get off.
Now you say, what did why did this
person
the reason you get on a train is
to go to a destination and get off.
Nobody gets on a train to stay on
the train.
Exactly the same with us. We got on
a train called life,
and where we get off is called death.
We don't know the name of that station.
We don't know when that will happen, but
we know that when you get on a
train, there's only one reason you get on
a train and that is to get off.
And that is why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
said,
in the Quran,
What you heard is the actual
speech of God. Is Allah
said this, and this is what was revealed
to his prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him. And this means, and
when their time arrives,
they cannot delay it for a moment
nor could they advance it.
You cannot die before your time and you
cannot live after your time.
Therefore, we believe that life quality can be
improved,
not the duration. The duration cannot be lengthened.
So people say do this and do that.
Stop maxing maxing on carbs and sugars,
and,
eat more protein,
and, you know, exercise and so on and
so forth. And this will prolong your life.
No. It will not prolong your life. You
will still die on the same day at
the same time, at the same instant as
was written for you. However,
until you get there, you will have definitely
a better life quality. So all of these
things are worth doing. But the the duration
of life cannot be
either
lengthened or shortened.
This is again a very comforting,
belief to have, very comforting thing to think
about because,
especially when
young people die. Right? There's this terrible thing
to say, oh my god. This is this
person died so young. Well, everyone came with
their
expiry date
stamped on the,
you know, literally sort of stamped on the
foil. They came with a ticket,
onto the train which had a destination.
We didn't know that destination. We didn't know
when that was going to happen.
It happened 20 years into their life, into
the train journey.
With somebody, it might have been 5 years
into the train journey, with some with somebody
less and more, but everyone who comes on
to that train comes on to get off,
and that's what happened.
The second thing as I mentioned was the
absolute certainty of death.
We as Muslims believe this, and I'm sure
everybody believes that.
But the difference is that we believe therefore
that we need to prepare for that. Allah
said,
Every soul,
every living person will taste death,
and then to us
you will all be returned.
This us is not plural. This is the
royal plural
as, for example, the famous story of
this
lady in waiting
who told Queen Victoria a joke, and the
queen said, we are not amused.
So she didn't say, well, we are is
you at home? It is only you are
alone here, your majesty. Yes. We as in
the royal we, which is, we we understand
this in the English language.
When we is used by an individual,
then
either they don't know grammar, or or they
you are speaking to a royal.
So here, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is the Malikul Haqq. He is the true
and the only king,
and therefore in some parts in the Quran,
you will find the
plural used. In some places it is singular,
in some places the plural used when referring
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to Allah. So
every soul shall taste death, and then to
us, meaning to Allah, you will all be
returned. The important thing to understand here is
that every single person will die, and every
single person will be resurrected and will stand
before Allah to give account for their lives,
what they chose to do, and what they
did not choose to do. Once again,
this belief in death and resurrection on the
day of judgment, this is a core belief.
This is part of our creed.
And, again, it's a very comforting
belief to have because we find in the
world that there are people
who seem to get away with literally get
away with murder. You can see you can
see people who are committing genocide or people
who are committing all kinds of crimes and
who have been doing through history. There's no
this is
the sad reality of human history is that,
nothing is new.
So for centuries,
you have seen you've seen people who are
very powerful monarchs and various things, and they
committed all kinds of crimes,
and they walked free. I mean, no no
nobody,
you know, nobody stopped them.
Nobody did anything to them in this life,
and they apparently they got away. Well, guess
what? Islam says, nobody gets away.
Nobody gets away.
Everybody will be called to account. And this
therefore, this is a very comforting,
belief to have also because if you are
on the receiving end of the stick, then
you have this complete certainty to say, well,
do what you want because one day you
and I will both stand before God, before
Allah, and I will ask
Allah for my right, which you took away
from me.
Third thing is that we believe that
our forefather, the original,
from the the one from whom all the
entire human race,
is descended is
Adam, alayhi salaam, is Adam, and he was
created from the earth. He was created from
clay. So Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, said from
the earth to the earth, he said, minha
khalaqnakum
wafiha noiridukum
waminha
lukhurijuqum
taratulukhra.
He said, from the earth we created you,
and into it we will return you, and
from it we will bring you forth, bring
you back again.
And therefore, in Islam, all humans
are equal before
Allah, irrespective
of
their ethnicity,
their color, their race, or any other difference
they might have,
All human beings are equal before Allah. Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala chose to create us with
differences
of shape and form and and other things
so that we appreciate one another, so that
we respect one another, so that we love
one another, so that
we we we we,
build relationships with one another,
not as
a way of helping us
to discriminate against one another,
to have a sense of superiority
over one another. There's no racial superiority.
There's no superiority of 1 person over another
person for absolutely any reason at all in
Islam,
except Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said,
The most
respected, the most valued,
the most honored among you is the one
who is the most pious.
The only reason for the
honor of one person over another person in
the sight of God is their pieties, is
their commitment to virtue, to kindness, to service,
not color, not race, not
anything else that we have become used to
using in our lives. And if anyone does
that in Islam, this is a major crime
for
which they will answer. So therefore, the reminder
for all of us, all people go to
Allah
after their death.
A wise person goes to Allah before his
death.
And therefore, this is something as a reminder
to all of us to turn to Allah,
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, to remember that one day
I'm going to be standing before him, and
let me therefore prepare to make that day
the best day of my life.
So how do you prepare for death?
Now,
1st and foremost,
prepare provision
for the journey,
which is by
ensuring that our account
is settled.
So settle your account,
account with Allah,
and account with the people. So give people
their rights,
make sure
that you have not
violated anybody's rights.
And if we do, and we all make
mistakes,
then make sure that you apologize,
make sure that you settle
your account with that person.
Our account with Allah refers to the rights
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, which begins with
worshiping him without any partners because he has
no partners.
To make sure that we are on that,
that we worship Allah
without any partners,
and,
that we fulfill all those things which he
made for, which he made compulsory and,
on on us,
incumbent upon us,
which is for example, giving charity, fasting, and
so on. All of these, acts of of
worship
that we fulfill all of them. And, we
also settle
our accounts with people. For example, if you
haven't be if you if you had if
you haven't spoken to your brother,
or sister for years because you had some
misunderstanding, some anger between them, now's the time.
Pick up the phone, call them, settle the
score. And remember, I'm not talking about somebody
who's on their death bed
because one of the things about death is
that we don't know when it will come.
I could be I could be I could
die just now talking to you in this
video, and you could just see me die.
This is entirely possible. It's happened multiple times
for multiple people.
So when must I settle my score? When
must I settle my account with people? Right
now.
No delays.
So whoever you have wronged in whichever way,
if you if you had a if you
do not have a good relationship with your
parents, with your siblings,
correct it now.
Right? Don't let your ego,
take you to the wrong place.
So also,
as I said, we all make mistakes, sometimes
we make mistakes
unknowingly, sometimes we deliberately do something wrong.
May Allah protect us from ourselves.
So if you have grabbed somebody's property, if
you maligned somebody, if you slandered somebody, if
you lied against somebody, whatnot,
make sure that you settle that account.
Go to that person, apologize,
recompense them,
compensate them for what you did, return their
property or whatever you took from them unjustly
and so on. Make sure you set your
scores because believe me, you do not want
to meet Allah
with these scores
because on that day
that settlement will be very difficult, very
expensive. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he told us
that Allah
will forgive or may forgive
his rights,
but Allah will not forgive any transgression against
another person
until they
forgive it before that, until they forgive it
first.
And in Islam, there's no differentiation in these
things of justice between a Muslim and non
Muslim. So Allah will not forgive a Muslim
for having transgressed against a non Muslim until
the non Muslim forgives that Muslim
until the non Muslim forgives that Muslim first.
There is complete equality,
and that is the meaning of justice. You
cannot call something just when you have differential
in terms of,
rules and consequences,
for one
person compared to another person. In Islam, there
is no one who's above the law.
To this day, in most countries, the king
is above the law. The president is above
the law.
The presidential
immunity, you you have royal immunity.
In England, the king of England, the queen
of England cannot be tried in a British
court because they are above the law. In
Islam, nobody is above the law.
The law is supreme.
Second one
is severing ties
of this world,
which is mentally and emotionally
getting detached from this life. Once again, advice
not only to the person on the death
bed, but to everyone at all time. By
all means,
enjoy life.
You
know,
nothing wrong in in in, like liking and
loving what Allah has blessed us with, which
is our families,
above everything else. Yeah. And then, of course,
even our possession, for example, you know, you
might have a nice car. You like the
car. You, you have a nice house. You
like the house.
Whatever it is, but don't get attached to
that in a way where leaving it will
become very difficult.
The more attached you are to material stuff,
the more attached you are to worldly possessions,
the more attached you are to to individuals,
the more difficult it will be to leave
them. And that is the reason why charity,
and giving and spending in the path of
Allah is so
emphasized in Islam. We have charity as part
of the core creed, as part of the
core belief called Zakat, which is 2a half
percent
it's
it's
hugely recommended to spend in the path of
Allah because when you're spending in the path
of Allah,
it detaches you from
from your possessions. Allah in one place in
the Quran, Allah said,
you will never reach the highest level of
piety
until you give in the path of Allah,
until you spend for the sake of Allah
that which you love the most.
Now think about that, it's not just charity,
it's not just I'm giving away my old
clothes and so on and so forth. All
of which is good,
I'm giving away my spare food that I
don't need, all of which is good, I'm
not discovering that. But Allah is saying, if
you really want to get close to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala you must give what you
love the most.
Why? To to ensure that this kind of
emotional attachment
to material things is broken.
And finally,
when you reach Allah,
like we go with a gift for a
king,
what is it that Allah
values the most?
Albu al salim.
A pure heart,
a tranquil heart, a heart which is
free from all forms of corruption.
A heart which has which is filled with
the door, with the light of the tawhid
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The light of the oneness of Allah
The light of obedience to Allah
A heart which is not filled with hatred
and jealousy and envy
and all
the stuff that we fill it with,
in our normal way of being, a heart
which is clean from all that.
A heart full of mercy, a heart full
of kindness, a heart full of which is
focused on justice, a heart which accepts Allah
and obedience to him as the core belief
of that person.
The akhirah,
I remind myself to you, the akhirah which
is the hereafter,
is based on our
life choices today.
And that's a very important thing to understand.
We have a past, we have a present,
and we have a future.
The past is done. The only use of
the past is to learn from it.
You cannot undo it, You cannot relive it,
but you can learn from it. And then
in the present,
do things
which will be beneficial
for the future. We have control over the
future.
We have
the power to write our own destiny
in this life and the next life.
And the place to do that, the place
to write that destiny
is this life,
is this present.
So this present that we have
right now is the most valuable time that
we will ever have in our lives.
There's nothing more valuable
than the present.
Because whatever we do in this present is
going to affect our future.
Our future in this life as well as
our future
in the life in the hereout.
And that's why
it's very important to make the right choices
and to stay on the right path
with steadfastness
throughout our lives.
I remind myself in you that
in Islam,
the relationship between God and man, between the
human being and his creator
is a very personal relationship.
A Muslim loves Allah.
Allah said those who believe, they love Allah
over and above more than anyone or anything
else.
It's a very personal relationship.
I talked, therefore you must talk to Allah.
You must tell Allah that you love Him,
and you must tell Him how much you
love Him and you must show your love
for Him by being obedient to Him. You
must show your love for Him
by doing
more than normal
to please Him.
Worshipping Him, charity,
being kind to people, being nice to people,
all with the intention of pleasing Allah
Feeding the poor, nursing the sick,
working with people in prisons,
all the
meaning
helping people in difficulty get out of that
difficulty. All of this takes us close to
Allah
And this is a sign. These are signs
that we love Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. It's
a very personal relationship. Similarly, if I make
a mistake in Islam, I don't need to
go to a priest to confess and ask
the priest to give me,
to to something to to be perdition. No.
I made the mistake.
If my mistake, if my crime, maybe I
did it deliberately, knowingly,
then it becomes a crime.
If that has to do with Allah only.
For example, I was supposed
something which is completely prohibited.
But I did that. So now what do
I do? I apologize, I repent to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. I seek His mercy and
His forgiveness and InshaAllah, I have
complete confidence that He will forgive because He
said He will forgive all sins.
But we need to seek repentance
and never repeat that again.
If the kind of thing that I did
affected somebody else,
if I backbeat somebody, if I slandered somebody,
if I lied against somebody, if I cheated
somebody, if I, oppress somebody, if I beat
up somebody, whatever I did, anything wrong that
I did with somebody else,
then I need to apologize to that person
first and seek their forgiveness before I go
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and ask him
to forgive me because as I mentioned before
the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam said, Allah will not forgive a
person until the one they wronged forgives them
first.
In Islam, there is no differentiation
in these things, in matter of justice between
Muslim and non Muslims.
Equal rights.
So if a Muslim
oppresses
or is unjust to a Muslim, it is
exactly the same as a Muslim being unjust
or oppressing a non Muslim.
Forgiveness must be sought,
compensation must be paid,
the account must be settled before we meet
Allah We also
love Allah,
and we build this love of Allah
by
recognizing
His glory and majesty,
and then thanking Him for what He gave
us.
Imagine we are sitting on this planet, the
earth, which is spinning at a speed of
a 1000 miles an hour,
and at the same time it is also
going around the sun.
The sun is also spinning.
And this entire universe, to the best of
our knowledge,
is full of these amazing
spinning systems.
All of them spinning at different speeds,
completely insane speeds.
Some of them angle like the earth,
23 and a half degrees angle, which gives
us our seasons.
Different angles for different things.
Composed of different things that we know, some
with gases only, some with with with, you
know,
matter,
rocks and whatnot.
And all of this entire thing is simultaneously
in motion.
The extent of it which is impossible
even to imagine,
This is Allah.
He is the One who created all of
this. He is the One who keeps it
going.
He is the One who set up systems
where this happens in perpetuity until He
keeps it happening.
The earth is moving at, for example, rotating
at a speed of a 1000 miles an
hour, but the way it is doing that,
the original energy came from the
original creation.
Call it big bang, call it what you
want.
But the way it is spinning, it produces
its own energy and it does not need
any external energy from inside.
You know, I mean, I I don't know
how to explain that. Maybe it's like,
filling your your your tank with gas once
and then you drive your car for the
duration of the lifespan of the car or
your lifespan, whichever ends first, and you never
have to fill the gas the gas tank
again. That would be quite cool, wouldn't it?
This is Allah.
Where I'm sitting here
in,
West Springfield,
this has an an area
of,
of 14 or 15 square miles.
Last year, it had precipitation,
rain and snow together,
amounting to
50
inches.
And that transportation
fell on this 15 square miles.
Now you do the sums,
One square mile is 640
acres.
So 15 square miles is 9,600
acres.
9,600
acres
received
50 inches of rain.
One inch of rain on 1 acre,
weighs a 113
tonnes.
So 50 inches of rain
on 9,600
acres, which is 15 square miles,
weighed 54,240,000
tons.
54,000
tons.
Now imagine this.
This came down on us from a height,
average height of 15,000 feet.
Imagine if this entire precipitation
had just come down like that
from 15,000 feet.
What would happen?
There would be a lake
of 15 square miles. There would be no
West Springfield
completely smashed.
It's like a tidal wave
hitting you from above.
But instead,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala sends that rain
and that snow,
one drop
and one flake at a time.
So the rain comes as a blessing
instead of as a sign of wrath.
I'm a wildlife photographer
and when I first saw
in this country after a winter storm,
I looked out my window and I saw
something
bright red,
like a ruby,
literally glowing
on the snow.
And when I focused with my telephoto lens,
I see this northern cardinal male
sitting on a rock,
which is almost covered with the snow
and surrounded by this white,
almost shining field of pure white snow.
This bright red cardinal.
I had tears in my eyes
because I was conscious that the only reason
I was able to see that
that stark
contrast
of this blood red bird
on this white field
was because I have full color vision.
I imagine that same scene
in black and white.
And the reason I'm saying all this to
you is because
this is what Islam encourages us to do.
Islam encourages us
to be observant in our lives,
and to thank Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and
to thank God for
the so called small blessings that we get
every single day.
I thank Allah for my friends.
I thank Allah for my new friends,
My old friends, of
course, who have been who have been my
friends for,
you know, some of my friends are now
we've been friends for over 50 years, but
I'm I'm very thankful also for the people
who I have known very,
for for a few months maybe,
about a year or 2, but good friends.
I thank Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for my
family, I thank everything.
The fact that you for example, if you're
eating flaky pastry,
do that with consciousness.
The when you bite into flaky pastry,
the crunch of it,
the slight taste of it as it comes,
little bit salty maybe.
And then whatever is the filling
in that pasty, whether it's sweet or savory.
I know a person
who
this lady has 3 children. After her 3rd
child,
she completely lost
her sense of taste. The taste buds
got knocked out. I have no idea why
that happened, but it happened.
And how I discovered that was we were
together at,
at a dinner in Hyderabad, and there was
this fabulous food. Hyderabad Hyderabadi food is incredible.
And I was eating it, she was eating
it. I said to her, I said, isn't
this absolutely fabulous, the food? She said, you
know, I have no idea.
So I was surprised. I was absolutely shocked.
I said, what do you mean you have
no idea? She said, for to me, everything
tastes like cardboard.
I was shocked.
I said, why? She said, because I have
lost my taste buds. I I have no
sense of taste.
So she can eat the hottest chili, it
makes no difference to her. She can eat
the most bitter stuff she made. Absolutely nothing
has any taste.
Now just think about that. How much should
we be grateful to Allah
for taste buds?
How much should we be grateful for the
fact that
this beard and I here, which you can't
see, because there's not much to see anyway,
and these nails
are all dead tissue.
Because if these had nerve endings,
then I would need to go and you
would need to go under general anesthesia every
time we need a haircut.
The more we think, the more we
reflect, the more
we love the one who created us
in such intricate detail
with so much of thought and so much
of love.
And imagine
if Allah did not give me full cultivation,
if He did not give me taste buds,
who would it affect?
Allah?
What difference does it make to Him?
But the fact that he gave it to
me
makes a difference to me.
It makes a difference to me.
And it makes a huge difference to me.
And that is what I,
recommend that you do, and this is what
we do, and that is the result is,
that there is a desire to meet Allah.
This is where death is not something you
run away from, death is not something you
are afraid of, but death is something that
in a very positive way, you actually welcome.
Now imagine that having said that, I'm not
saying that, you know, suicide is haram al
Islam. Suicide is absolutely, completely, totally forbidden for
any reason whatsoever. He's not talking about suicide.
He's saying that when the time comes,
here's all good time,
there is not a time that you run
away from. You don't say, Oh my God,
no, no, I don't want to go, this
is too early. No, no, no, it's alhamdulillah,
alhamdulillah.
I am now going to meet the one
that I loved all my life.
I'm now going to meet my beloved. I'm
now going to
meet the one who I tried to please
all my life and I hope He is
pleased.
I live my whole life obedient to Him
in expectation of reward from Him and now
I'm going and I look forward to being
rewarded by Him.
So the death so so for a for
a practicing Muslim,
death is not a time for a fear
or a time of,
you know, of terror. Death is a time
when he is going to meet or she
is going to meet the one that they
loved all their lives, and therefore there's anticipation,
there's this desire
to meet Allah
which is, ta'ala, Allahu Ramza. We say Allah
is higher and above all
ways of,
comparing him, but this would be like wanting
to the opportunity to meet your dearest and
closest friend who you've been friends with all
this life,
all all these years, but you've never seen
and you've never met them, and now is
the time you're gonna meet them. How do
you think it feels?
And that is how,
preparing for death feels for a Muslim.
There's a beautiful story in the,
seerah, which is the life of the biography
of the prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, where he
came upon a man,
who was praying, and he was
making dua. He was supplicating. He was,
you know, talking to Allah quite literally.
And, the man said,
This man was making this dua and he
was saying, he was praying,
and he was saying,
O the one whom eyes cannot see,
who cannot be imagined,
who is beyond description,
who is unaffected
by happenings,
who cannot be overwhelmed by the twists and
turns of time,
who knows the weight of the mountains
and the volume of the oceans,
the number of falling raindrops,
the number of leaves on the trees,
and everything upon which the night darkens
and upon which the day brightens.
No sky can hide another from him.
No surface of the earth can hide another
from him. No ocean can hide anything
within its depths
from him,
and no mountain can conceal from him anything
within its rocks.
Make the last part of my life the
best.
Make the best of my deeds the last
and make my best day
be the day
on which I meet you.
This man was praying and he was saying
this, the prophet Muhammad,
peace and blessings be upon him. He passed
by. He
heard this prayer.
He
asked someone to wait until the man finishes
praying and bring the man to him. And
when the man came, he gave him a
piece of gold. Somebody had given the prophet
Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam a piece of gold.
He gave it to this man, and this
man was obviously very happy.
Then the prophet,
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, said to him, he asked
him, do you know why I gave him
this quote? The man said, because we are
related, because he was from a tribe which
was related to the tribe of the prophet
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam peace and blessings be
upon him. So the prophet said, yes. It
is good for us to maintain our our,
relationships,
our ties, but I did not give you
the gold for that reason. He said, I
gave you the gold because of the beautiful
way in which you praised Allah.
Now this beautiful story and this Dua
illustrates 2 things. 1 is the importance of
being observant, the importance of being thankful and
grateful for the smallest things in the world.
The man is talking about every leaf that
falls and so on and so forth.
And
this builds our love for Allah. This builds
the the the the glory and magnificence of
Allah in our hearts. And the second thing
is
always remember that one day I'm going to
meet him, and therefore the man says, make
my life, my last day the best. Meaning
what? Meaning that make my life such that
it improves from day to day to day
to day until the last day is the
best day of my life.
So the life is a is a series
of
of positive developments,
that makes me a better and better human
being as I grow older
until my last day, whenever that is, which
will be the best day of my life
when I meet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Made
the last name, the last part of my
life the best, my last action, the best
action, and the last day that I meet
you, the best day of my life.
We come now to the death rituals.
There are 4. We bathe the body, we
shroud the body, we pray
and seek forgiveness for the for the person,
and then we bury them. So 4,
stages to that.
Now what must you do,
at the time of death,
the people who are around this around this
person,
you will find them with their Muslims around
them. If if you are in the hospice
or something,
or in the hospital,
what you must do, very important,
is,
to call somebody who is a Muslim to
come and attend to this person who's dying.
Right?
I will still tell you what you can
do as, even if you're not Muslim, but,
it's it is good to have a Muslim
there.
Need not necessarily be a scholar or an
imam or something. Can be anybody. And that
is why it is very important,
to
have a network and build relationships
with Muslims in your,
community.
And there are with the Muslims,
we are aware. We we are there in
practically
every community. So build that, build those relationships
and call that person. Now you will find
that when the person comes, if there's a
Muslim
there, they will recite the shahada,
the testimony of faith,
and,
to the person who's
dying.
We don't force them to say it. We
just say it, and they will repeat it
after us. If they don't repeat it for
whatever reason, maybe Alzheimer's, maybe something else,
you know, or somebody sudden death,
it doesn't matter. It's okay because they lived
with that. So inshallah, they died on that.
But where there is a possibility where the
person is still conscious and so on, it
is good to recite this kalimah, and the
kalimah is
Arabic, if you can. If you can't, then
just say it in English and say, I
bear witness
that there is no one worthy of worship
except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad,
peace be upon him, is the last and
final messenger of Allah.
And if there is a Muslim who's doing
who's there, this is what you will you
will see them doing. The second thing you
can do,
when you are,
especially in the hospice last days, last hours,
is to to,
recite Quran
or to put a,
a recitation of Quran,
near the person, maybe on their phone, maybe
on some other device.
The the Internet is, the YouTube has lots
and lots of very beautiful Quranic recitation.
Do listen to that yourself. You will you
will find it's a very soothing,
very calming, very,
you know, strengthening sound. Even if you don't
understand it, the the the cadence of it,
the the sound of it itself,
is is very, very,
empowering
and very soothing and calming. So,
listen to it and then play it for
them. So you will find that this will
calm them down. This will,
this will strengthen them. This will help them
build a connection with Allah who they will,
will be meeting shortly.
Now once the person has died, has passed
away,
you will find the eyes are open, and
the prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him, told us
that the eyes follow the soul. They see
the soul as the soul is leaving the
body.
So eyes are open, so you need to
shut the eye. Just just this way,
you know,
put the the lids down. They will stay
shut.
Don't leave them open like that. Secondly,
is tie a bandage
around the head under the
jaw so that the mouth is closed. Otherwise,
you will have the
the body with the mouth open doesn't look
nice. So just to make sure that the
mouth remains shut,
just I manage,
around the from the head under the,
under the under the jaw.
Then straight strengthen
the limbs,
arms arms by the side, and, legs straight.
Because, otherwise, if it's a if the body
is in not position,
and like a body set in sets in
anew,
then it becomes difficult to do that. So
as
soon as the person has passed away, straighten
straight straighten,
the the limbs and the 2 big toes,
tie them together.
Otherwise, the the feet sort of tend to,
you know, go apart like that. So this
is more dignified. And then cover the whole
body including the face with a sheet of
cloth. It is very important to maintain
dignity and treat the body as if the
person is still alive.
It's very important. That's the reason why we
also do not encourage post mortem, unless there
is a forensic reason to do that.
And, you know, for example, if some foul
play is,
is suspected
or some medical reason.
But otherwise, normally, no no postpartum.
If a person has donated organs, then of
course, that is permitted to be taken up.
But other than that,
do not
trouble the body. There's no embalming.
There's no injecting of any chemicals,
to preserve the body and so on and
so forth. Nothing. You don't touch the body.
You leave the person as they died, and
you treat the body as if the person
is still alive.
Then,
the bathing of the body,
By this time, you would have added the
body over to the family,
and, this is what they would do if
a person dies and they have no family,
then the Muslim community,
will take over that responsibility.
So contact the nearest mosque.
Contact your your Muslim community Islamic Center, and
they will take care of that.
So they will bathe the body. Now when
we bathe the body, we do that again,
respectfully
with warm water.
I'm not going to be talking about exactly
how it is done because that's, you know,
detailed
matter which need not be part of our
presentation here, but the body is bathed, cleaned,
just like you bathe up when you when
you have a bath, you would do that.
And, it is we do we use
warm water as if the body is alive.
And then we shroud the body, which is
we cover the body,
in a,
in in a sheet of cloth. Usually, it
is white, but it did not be white.
So it's usually the the way it is
done is you put a a shirt, which
is like a poncho in over the top
of the body, you have a covering over
the,
over the legs and the and the waist,
and then the full covering over over all
of these. So with these,
sheets, the body is completely covered.
After that, we pray what is called Salatul
Janazah,
the,
the the prayer for the deceased.
And this is, the funeral prayer
which is,
performed
by, whoever is available at the time. The
community
can be,
which which would probably obviously, it would include
the family if the family is there. But
if there's no family or if the family
is away somewhere,
but the janaza will not be delayed for
them to come to the
to the to the funeral. The prayer would
be done by Muslims in the area,
seeking forgiveness for the person, and then the
body is buried in the shroud.
No coffin, no box, no casket,
nothing between the earth and the person
except the sheet of cloth that covers him.
A good friend of mine the other day
sent me
a,
a video of, some group which was promoting
what they called biodegradable
pods.
They said, you should bury people in biodegradable
pods. And my friend said to me, isn't
that a wonderful idea? I said yes. I
said yes. It's an excellent idea. We have
been doing that for the last 1400 years.
We're all very in biodegradable
parts
because,
the body, the Muslim body is in a
sheet of cloth, and this goes into the
ground onto the earth,
without anything,
between the body and the earth.
Final point
is it is highly recommended to do,
the burial
as early as possible, as soon after the
person dies as possible. So in Islam, there
is no lying in state, and there's no,
viewing, and there's no wakes, and there's no
one coming to, you know, waiting for this
person to come and that person to come
and so on and so forth. As soon
as the person dies, this person is,
the body is washed, the person is sprayed
over,
and then the body is buried as quickly
as possible,
ideally on the same day itself
within a couple of hours as soon as,
logistically it is possible.
Now
what happens after death?
A person goes into another world, as I
mentioned right in the beginning, which is called
barzakh, which is the waiting time until the
day of judgment.
And then on the day of judgment, we
are resurrected,
and we stand before Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
in the court of Allah,
and there we will be
rewarded, and we hope we will not be
punished.
All that depends on what we chose to
believe and what we chose to do in
our lives.
And then we are assigned to,
paradise, to Jannah or to Jannah, which is
hellfire. We ask Allah to protect us from
the hellfire.
Very, very important to understand Islam.
Nobody is exempt and nothing is hidden.
To the extent
to the extent, and this is the most
powerful thing that I can tell you. The
prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he himself
said to his favorite daughter Fatima
He said to her, oh Fatima,
do not believe that you will stand before
Allah as my daughter. You will stand before
Allah based on your own deeds.
So we don't believe that you will be
treated
differently from anyone because of who your father
was or who your uncle was. It is
no, it is
each one of us will stand before Allah
based on what we chose to do or
chose not to do, and we will be
rewarded or punished,
or forgiven as Allah wishes. And we ask
Allah for his forgiveness, and we ask Allah
for his reward, and we ask Allah,
for protection from his punishment.
As far as mourning is concerned,
1st and foremost,
as I mentioned to you, death is not
annihilation,
but transfer to another life, and therefore,
dignity and mourning. In Islam, it is not
permitted to beat your chest and to scream
and rave and rant and throw dust on
your face and, you know, roll on the
ground and tear your clothes. All the kinds
of,
visible and,
you know, the sort of
demonstrative
burning, which people do,
in Islam. This is haram. This is forbidden.
We are crying. Yes. Of course. There is
when there when the heart is,
is is grieved, tears will flow, and this
is perfectly novel, perfectly acceptable,
but
overt
demonstrations
of,
grief are prohibited.
General warning, for example,
by the in the sense of, you know,
you don't go out anyway, you don't do
anything, you just don't feel like doing anything
and so forth.
For the general people, 3 days.
After that, life must continue
positive
outlook to life. The person who died is
not annihilated, is not finished. He's just gone
into another world and I'm going to be
joining him soon, so therefore
life goes on. For widows,
the mourning period,
is called ida. Ida. It is 4 months
10 days,
and this is to make sure that the
widow, if she was pregnant, then she will
the pregnancy will become visible,
because,
if the if she was pregnant,
then the child will inherit from the father
who passed away. So, therefore, this period of
money, 4 months and 10 years. And after
that, she is,
free to marry
somebody else.
There is no,
prohibition on widows,
to get married again in Islam.
And then I said finally,
very important,
maintaining dignity,
during mourning,
without any
overt
displays of grief, like wailing
and so on and so forth.
Finally,
takeaways,
death is natural
and certain, so we must prepare for it.
Resurrection and accounting
is true
and will happen, and therefore, we need to
live our life
with that in mind and make sure
that
we
do not do anything which is
likely to affect us
negatively when we meet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And finally,
that death is temporary parting,
as we will meet
those we will meet our loved ones,
InshaAllah,
here in the hereafter.
And that is why when somebody dies, when
you get the news of their death, we
say,
to Allah we belong and to him is
our return.
Some usually questions which I asked is,
what about coffin and so on?
Suppose that somebody is getting a state funeral,
then you would have a band, you would
have music, you would have flowers. In Islam,
all of this is not permitted. There's no
coffin.
There is no you would not say, you
know, you would not accept a state funeral.
Once you're dead, you're finished. There's no state,
no nothing. You are with Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. And so, therefore, the burial must be
done the way I mentioned.
No music, no marching bands,
no consolutes,
no flowers,
none of that.
As we said in Islam, we do not
believe in reincarnation.
It's a one way street, so drive safely.
Act of charity will help after death,
and this is something that can be done
for peep people who who, passed away is,
to do acts of charity. This can can
be anything which is,
you know, which is beneficial for others.
And, therefore,
this is something that one Muslim does for
another,
you know, depending on what you have, whether
it's a small amount of money, it's a
large amount of money, it's a physical service,
Whatnot you do with the,
with, including some prayers, some kinds of prayers,
with the intention and with the wish and
desire that this should benefit the person who
passed away.
Ask Allah
to enable us to live our lives in
a way that pleases him and so that
the way that so that when we meet
of our lives.
of our lives.