Limited Lifetime

Was published in Arabic in November 04, 2015

Translated by Ahmed Fathy

  This email message has touched us deeply; we quote it here and then reply to it:

    (…please respond quickly to my message; I spend my days crying while I race with time. Three weeks ago, I woke up at midnight feeling severe bangs in my head. At hospital, I have been diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. Doctors tell me I have only about four months to live! I am 29 years old; I will not live to reach the age of thirty! I am crying my eyes out still! I am extremely afraid of death and interment! A visit to a psychiatrist has made me feel worse than ever. I had to hide my state of health from my fiancée whom I love very much. I had to feign a major fight with her in order to break up the engagement. It was very painful to see her tears! I cannot deprive her of a better future with someone else, not with a dying man like myself. However, I have written a will witnessed by a lawyer to give her all my possessions (money, assets, lands etc.) along with a video tape of myself explaining everything with my best wishes for her with another man. I have no family at all. My late father disowned and forsook his family members in the countryside and I do not know them. I can no longer work on my MA thesis. I have quit my job, in a certain bank, and got rid of my cellular phone. I have deliberately lost contact with the outside world, while I remain at home. I decided to receive no visitors, and I hate to see pity in their faces towards myself. No one can help me in any possible way, not even my fiancée. I am a dying man! I feel dead already. Waiting for death at any hour is harder than death itself; I feel like a man condemned to death by hanging though I have not committed any crime. I cry for all lost dreams that are never to be realized. Sometimes, I feel terrified that I might die alone at home and no one would know except when I rot! I am afraid of being buried in a tomb! My parents died after reaching over 60 years of age. I sometimes recollect my life in the past; what is the sin I have committed to deserve to die early in such a way? I learned from Dad that telling lies is the worst sin ever; I am used to being frank with all people and thus have earned their respect. I have been successful at work due to my diligence and frankness; that is why I got promoted fast. I am used to rejecting the idea of praying at mosques on Fridays; I felt that this is a type of hypocrisy. I pray at home always. I hate sermons as they are filled with myths and lies to the brim. People hate my stance in this matter yet respect me. I never committed fornication. I waited patiently to get married to my beloved fiancée. But I admit I kissed and fondled her sometimes. I never took bribes and never stole anything. I pray sometimes not regularly. I planned to pray regularly once I become a husband and a father; I planned to perform pilgrimage once I get married. I fast Ramadan since my childhood. I give alms and charity in mosques in US$ not in LE. In most times, I have been a good upright person, why Fate has decreed that I die so soon childless and wifeless? I never caused God to be angry with me; why evil people live long and see their grandchildren? I believe in the mercy of God, but why did that happen to me?! I heard about you once; some people praised you and some others cursed you. I entered your website and understood little but I admired your views. I spend ours now reading your archive of articles and books. Now I am asking you: why did that happen to me? Why am I not having my chance to live and be a better person? Please reply to me before I die…)

  Here is our reply:

Firstly:

 Our dear son: let us remind you of the facts that you have to remember to accept your fate:

1- There are four decrees of fate determined to every person before we are born; we cannot escape or change decrees of fate:

1/1: What is related to birth: one cannot escape/choose one's parents, bodily and facial features, skin color, height, etc. these factors are all predestined.

1/2: One's money and possessions and food are all predestined; countless millionaires become penniless and countless poor persons become wealthy.

1/3: Disasters, accidents, and surprises that occur without our interference are all predestined.

1/4: Death: this is the destiny of all living creatures. Every human being is bound to die sooner or later in the date and time predestined for him/her. One cannot escape death once one's time comes.

2- Since death is inevitable, every one of us is facing a death warrant or sentence; some die old and some young since Adam and Eve to the last person before the Day of Resurrection. Would you have liked to die old and suffer negligence, loneliness, and ailments of senile old age or to die in young age, without sins, and with faith in God? Does one have a choice in the first place? Predestined matters are not known to us before they occur. This part of God's omniscience. God will not judge us according to things predestined, you know. The Almighty will not judge you about your age, wealth, poverty, social status, health, terminal illness, accidents, way of death predestined to you…etc. rather, He will judge us according to our actions, good and bad, based on our free will. God will forgive us our trespasses and (small and grave) sins if we repent and do good deeds. One cannot escape death, but one can choose to enter Paradise if one repents and perform good deeds; thus, death will visit you after you have been purified with piety. Remember that there is no end or death in Paradise; one will find there limitless bliss and joy. This is in contrast to our transient limited existence on earth, with its blessings mixed with pains and toil. Please think of you real future in the Afterlife after the Day of Judgment. If you believe in God alone without any partners of deities/gods invented by human beings and without worship of stones/buildings sanctified and made holy by human beings, besides believing in the Quran and all its tenets of faith, you will win God's Paradise. In addition, you have to perform good deeds to others and sincerely repent of all sins and God, and He will accept your repentance for sure. Others who die in sin and rebelliousness will enter into Hell everlastingly in the Afterlife. There is no real future in our transient world; real future is in Afterlife, irrespective of one's dying young or old. Countdown of one's end of life begins once one is born out of the womb.  With the passage of days, we move involuntarily to the predestined date and time of our death. Real future is in the Last Day that will never end, in Paradise or Hell, not in the limited short day of one's life on earth.

3- Our transient life on earth is nothing but a test to each human being, coupled with liberty of choice. Apart from the four predestined elements mentioned above, you have absolute freedom to choose between the dichotomies: God/ false deities and gods especially of mortals' tombs, obedience/ rebellion, justice/ injustice, good deeds/ evildoing…etc. one cannot avoid destiny and mortality, but one can choose well for one's Afterlife. Your choices will determine your residence either in Paradise or in Hell. God never waste away the good deeds of a repentant. God will keep His promise of Paradise to the pious and to the repentant ones. Spend the rest of your days in piety and worship, dearest son. You will experience divine felicity and heavenly bliss that will fill your heart with peace and serenity.

4- Date and time of one's death cannot be known by human beings. This is part of the omniscience of God. You cannot know exactly when and where you will die. Even your doctor/fiancée might die before your death occurs. I sincerely advise you to try to go on with your life and every possible treatment. You will die in the time and place predestined to you, not decreed by medical consultancy. No one can postpone one's death time. All human beings march towards their death with the speed rate of 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, and 24 hours per day. Human tragedy lies in the fact that we tend to forget this fact and think that we never die. We remember death momentarily and forget all about it later on after attending funerals. It is as if the bell will never toll for us one day. Death happens to the old, the young, females, males, children, etc. we are to remember death daily and work for our future in the Afterlife.

5- Death is painless. One feels as if asleep or in a coma. Please read our book published here on our website, titled ''Book of Death'', in which we have written facts of death as represented in the Quran, away from mythology and popular notions. Death is the end of all pains and illnesses. The important moment in one's life is the moment of dying itself; when one sees angles of death. In such a moment, one will see one's destiny according to one's faith and deeds. One cannot add or subtract from the book of one's deeds. Your soul will see your body after leaving it. Bad sinners would have liked to cry and shout for another chance when they see angels of death talking to them about their life in Hell. Good people whose faith and deeds deserve Paradise will be happy to see angels of death talking to them about their place in Paradise. One's soul goes not into Hell or Paradise; this is after the Day of Judgment. Before the Day of Judgment and after death, one's soul enters the ethereal existence known in the Quran under the term Barsakh , waiting for resurrection. This is the place where one's soul exited before being formed in the womb.

6- Please read our book published here on our website titled ''Torment of the Tomb", where we refute this myth. There is no life in tombs; neither bliss nor torment, or any form of life of any type. One's body is decomposed in many stages until it is turned to dust. Souls return to Barsakh from where they came.                                      

Lastly:

 Try to visit your paternal relatives and get to know them. Your father's sin of never knowing them is not your fault. Retrieve and annul your will written by your lawyer. Tell your fiancée the truth, and make her choose/decide what to do and try to get back to your work, telling your colleagues about your state of health. Go and pray now to the Almighty and repent. Ask forgiveness and be content with your destiny and ask for His mercy.