The Gift of Death & God’s Decree
Death is certain; a Divine promise that will come true and yet people spend their whole lives trying to avert it. Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad reminds us for the believer, death is not to be feared but rather a gift to be embraced. Those who are content with God’s decree and who work diligently towards meeting Him will neither fear nor grieve.
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00:00Bismillah, alhamdulillah, wa salatu wa salamu ala rasulillah, wa alihi wa sahbihi wa man
00:06ghala.
00:07Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, innama tuAAaduna laAAat wa maa antum bimuAAjizeen, sadaqallahul
00:19azeem.
00:20That which you are promised will surely come and you will not escape.
00:27His promises are true.
00:30And he has promised that at the end of this time of distraction, of grazing, of looking
00:37around, of perplexity, there will be certainty.
00:42Wa abud rabbaka hatta ya'tiaka alyaqeen, worship your Lord until that which is certain or certainty
00:52comes to you.
00:54The usual meaning of this is that it is death, that gateway which beckons all of us.
01:02Innama tuAAaduna laAAat, that which you are promised is coming.
01:09Our instinct is of course to try and run away, as if that was possible, as if we could avert
01:18the divine decree.
01:21The very word death, wafat, in Arabic means fulfilment.
01:27Yatawafakum malakul mawti alladhi wuqila bikum.
01:32The angel of death which you have been entrusted to will bring you to the end of your term.
01:39That is our ajal, and we are not muAAjizeen, we will not escape it.
01:48Qul inna almawta alladhi tafirruuna minhu fa innahu mulaqeekum, thumma turadduuna ilaAAalim
01:54alghaybi wa shahadati fayunabbiukum bima kunzum taAAmaloon.
02:01Say truly the death which you are running away from will come to you, and then you will
02:08be sent back to the one who knows that which was visible in you and that which was invisible
02:13and will tell you what you used to do.
02:16This is inescapable.
02:19Death and taxes, but some people do evade taxation, but even the super-rich don't evade death.
02:28Look at Maxwell, look at Epstein, look at so many others, titans in their age, all laid low.
02:36This is the sunnah of Allah in his creation that everybody has his ajal.
02:43In the Anbiya, the prophets who are the most beloved of creatures, they shall taste the
02:49bitterness of death and shall go through that mysterious portal at exactly the moment that
02:56the Lord decrees.
03:00So in this time, we can either engage in wool gathering, collecting stuff like so many other
03:09people nowadays who read books like a hundred things to do before you die, as if that was
03:14somehow going to help you at the time you do die.
03:17Have you done base jumping?
03:20Have you climbed El Capitan?
03:23Have you travelled to New Zealand and Tahiti?
03:26Have you, have you, have you?
03:27Usually expensive, environmentally destructive things that are just goggling at a world whose
03:31source we no longer even dimly intuit.
03:36Why do those hundred things before you die if you're not going to take them with you?
03:41But still, we run around this way and that.
03:47So it is like the poet said,
03:54The Asuman-i-Tuch-fu-Baran-bi-Ba-mi-Alam-i-Khaq-bi-Her-Suh-yi-bi-Da-vi-De-bi-Na-vi-Dan-raf-ti.
04:03The poet here compares human souls coming down onto the world like raindrops falling
04:10on the clay roof of a traditional house.
04:13Her, Suh-yi-bi-Da-vi-De, you run around in every direction like these raindrops, busily
04:20bouncing and cascading this way and that until you all go out through the same drain.
04:25Na-vi-Dan-raf-ti.
04:28That's where we will all exit.
04:31The same gutter will claim us all.
04:36Kham-ush-bash-tu-az-ren-ji-guft-wa-gu-yi-ma-khusb-ke-dar-pe-na-hi-chun-an-ya-ri-meh-rib-an-raf-ti.
04:45Be silent, friend, from the pain of speaking.
04:48Say no more, because you are travelling into the embrace of the beloved host.
04:57But that's how we are.
04:58We come down into the surface of this world and how busy we are, running this way and
05:03that.
05:05But the end is coming.
05:07In-ne-meh-tu-a-du-neh-la-et.
05:11So in this time, while we're on this mysterious surface of things, trying to work things out,
05:16we usually don't do that at all well, even if we bother to try.
05:21We can think about where we're going, or we can be distracted by where we are.
05:28Most human beings choose the latter of those two, because we're gravitational beings that
05:33like the easy route always.
05:35The path of least resistance is sweet and charming.
05:40But the Holy Prophet says, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
05:43الكيس من دان نفسه وعمل لما بعد الموت والعاجز من أتبع نفسه عواها وتمنى على الله
05:54The intelligent person is the one who calls himself to account and act for what is after death.
06:00And the loser, the useless person, is the one who allows his ego to follow its pleasures
06:07and just hopes for Allah's forgiveness.
06:10تمنى
06:12There's two kinds of hope.
06:14In Arabic, there's رجاء and there's تمني.
06:18رجاء is the hope that we experience when Allah describes his mercy to us and tells
06:24us about the infinitude of his gardens and about the beauty which awaits us if we are
06:30to experience that grace and forgiveness from our Creator.
06:34How could we not hope for that?
06:37But at the same time, there is another human hope, perhaps more common, which the Arabic
06:41language calls تمني, which means a vain hope.
06:45I'm going to do X but I hope that Y will be the result.
06:50I'm going to do this and hope against hope.
06:53It may be hopeless.
06:55I'm going to buy a scratch card and do the lottery and take these risks and I hope it
07:01will be alright.
07:02I'm going to drive down the M11 at 110 miles an hour and I hope that things will be alright.
07:09This is reprehensible hope.
07:10This is تمني.
07:12This is an abuse of human reason and of dependence on the Creator.
07:16توكل, reliance on God, doesn't mean you just sit back as if religion was some
07:21armchair of promises and just let things take their course.
07:26You know, the Holy Prophet ﷺ tells his Sahaba, هل من مشمر للجنة؟
07:34ألا إن الجنة لا خطر لها؟
07:37Is there anyone here who will roll up his sleeves for paradise?
07:42Paradise has no like.
07:44نحن مشمرون لها يا رسول الله.
07:48They say we are the ones who will roll up their sleeves for it, ya Rasulullah.
07:52You roll up your sleeves when you're about to do a job of work, when you're about to
07:55sweat, to make an effort, to sacrifice, not just sit around watching something meaningless
08:00but actually to go out to the garden shed, pick up your tools and fix something.
08:04Do something with your afternoon.
08:06Don't just تمنى على الله, hope that Allah will sort it out.
08:11No, human agency is real, we experience it as real, we are required to act.
08:18And this is why the believer does not fear death, not really, whatever state the world
08:24may be in at present, the Holy Prophet ﷺ says in the extraordinary hadith narrated
08:31by Tirmidhi, تُحْفَتُ الْمُؤْمِنُ الْمَوْتُ.
08:37Death is the precious gift to the believer.
08:39If he's really a believer and he's rolled up his sleeves and he's actually got on with
08:45making something of every moment of his life, while not thinking that his actions will save
08:50him, only Allah saves, but at least he is responding and obeying the divine call, putting
08:55himself in the way of that grace, even if he can't guarantee it, he's putting himself
09:00in the way of the rain, even though he can't make it fall.
09:04That that individual, when death comes, it's a gift.
09:10Look at the two who were in the cave, ثاني أثنين إِثْهُمَّا فِي الْغَارِ.
09:20The second of the two, ثاني أثنين, they were in the cave.
09:23Sayyiduna Abu Bakr al-Siddiq رضي الله عنه was afraid, the knight of the long knives,
09:28the Quraysh, the posse, they were out to kill them, but he says to his companion لَا تَحْزَنْ
09:35إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَنَا.
09:37Do not be grieved, Allah is with us.
09:41They were facing death.
09:45Nobody around to support them, Sayyiduna Sumayya and others coming by night, but the situation
09:52looked bleak.
09:53Islam in Makkah seemed to have been defeated.
09:55Some of the Sahaba had already lost their lives and the others chased out into a far
10:01and seemingly hopeless exile, but he is with his friend.
10:08And in the poem, Shaykh al-Islam Abdullah Quilliam writes about this, that he has the
10:15Holy Prophet ﷺ consoling Abu Bakr al-Siddiq saying, will he we live, no mortal power can
10:23take our lives away, will he we die, to him we pass, no need to feel dismay.
10:31And this is the لَا تَحْزَنْ, do not be grieved.
10:37If you live and you survive, there is more opportunity for experiencing the wonders of
10:40God's world, which is all his signs, opportunities to serve him, to serve humanity, it's khayr,
10:47it's good.
10:49If your ajal has been determined for this time, that is also from the divine decree
10:54and it is also to be accepted.
10:57To him we pass, no need to feel dismay.
11:02You're going on to the embrace of that beloved friend, what's wrong with that?
11:12So the believer, to the extent that he has iman, the mu'min, is not really afraid.
11:20لا خوف عليهم ولا هم يحسنون.
11:23There is no fear upon them, neither do they grieve.
11:27He accepts القدر حلوه ومره, the divine decree, the bitter and the sweet of
11:33it because he knows that it comes from his beloved, from his Lord, the one whose disposition
11:40of all things is always in a state of complete perfection, and this is rida, and rida which
11:47means to be contented with Allah's decree, it's a state of happiness, not of fear or
11:52misery.
11:53If you accept that only Allah's decree can come about, you'll be fine.
11:58من آمن بالقدر آمن من القدر Whoever believes in qadr, Allah's decree
12:04of things, he is safe from stress, from any kind of inner turbulence, because he knows
12:10that everything is under control, وإلى الله تصير الأمور, all matters
12:15go back to Allah.
12:18So the believer fears his bad actions, fears his times of distraction, fears that his tawbah
12:25may not be adequate, but the believer hopes in his Lord, he has rajat, and his Lord has
12:31said that he is arham ar-rahimin, the most merciful of the merciful.
12:36So those who in the month of Ramadan and in this season and in this time pass on through
12:42the curtain of death, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has described himself as the most just and
12:48as the most merciful, جُنَنْ يَارِي مِحْرِبَان رَفْتِي
12:53who would not wish to go on to the most generous and the most just and away from the injustices
12:59and the suffering and the pain and the turbulence and the qadr of this world.
13:04So this is the affair of the believer, عَجَبًا لِحَالِ الْمُؤْمِنُ
13:10amazing is the state of the believer.
13:13And the believers, the awliya, لا خَوْفٌ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا هُمْ يَحْزَنُونَ
13:19no fear comes upon them, neither do they grieve.
13:22They do not fear the future, that's in Allah's hands and therefore the future is good, رَحْمَةً
13:28عَدَالَةً correctness, appropriateness, rightness.
13:32And the past, also in His hands and it can't be fixed, what's gone is gone and we look
13:40forward not to the outcome of our actions which are muddy, inadequate, distracted things
13:47but on to the One who has called Himself أَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِينَ
13:51أَكْرَمَ الْأَكْرَمِينَ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ
13:54And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala have mercy on all of those who are taken back to Him
13:58in this blessed month of Ramadan and accept all of their actions according to their best
14:03intentions and overlook everything that they did that was in violation of His command and
14:10His law and help us to be people of sunnah and istiqamah and rightness inshallah in this
14:18time of distraction and of confusion and of fear.
14:21بَرَكَ اللَّهُ فِيكُمْ وَالْعَفْوُ مِنْكُمْ تَقَبَلَ اللَّهُ صِيَامَكُمْ وَأَسْعَدَ إِفْطَارَكُمْ
14:27وَسَلَمُوا عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللَّهُ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ