What If?

By: Afshan Habib, Calgary Alberta

What if one day you wake up and find you have all the symptoms of the dreaded Coronavirus? You have a slight fever; your throat hurts and you are having difficulty breathing. Your doctor friend asks you to get a Pulse Oximeter to measure your Oxygen percentage. Your family rushes to get one but nothing to be found. Everything is sold out and online delivery will take 18 days. Finally, your loved ones decide to take you to the hospital.

At the hospital, it's a different world. There is a sort of a war-zone in the hospital. Your mind starts racing. You start thinking: I am middle-aged and this age group is most prone to succumb to this illness and die. You feel panicky. What will happen if I have this illness and die? What would happen to me when I die? What would happen to my loved ones if I die. You worry about your loved ones you would be leaving behind. But most of all you worry about yourself!

Do I have enough good deeds in my bank account up in the sky to make me eligible for Jannah? What if this is it? No more time for you in this world. You start contemplating on the life you lead. Because now you don’t have much time to basically do anything. You have tried to be a good Muslim. Or you think you tried.

At the hospital they test you for COVID-19 and say that you will get the results tomorrow and you should go home and confine yourself in one room. It is a compulsory isolation so that no one else can catch the disease from you. So now comes the hard part. Self-isolation from your family and confined only to your room with closed doors. You come face to face with yourself. You feel lousy. Your throat hurts. In fact, your whole body hurts. You feel haunted, scared for your life, in pain, confused, and most of all, alone. You feel so alone!

Again, you start thinking of your life on this planet and your journey after death. You try to remember what the Sheikh said in his lecture on life after death. The only Islamic lecture you ever attended. The different phases you must go through in the after-life. The questioning of the grave. The crossing of the bridge of Siraat. The accountability to Allah (SWT) and the weighing of the scales. You start thinking about how your end is going to be. Will it be a good end or a bad end? The reality begins to hit you. You are worrying about what will happen in the grave. Will it be too small and dark for me?

Your mind is racing, thinking back on the life you spent. What major and minor sins have I committed? Did I deliberately hurt anyone? Then you remember yes, you did hurt so and so. Now you worry: how to ask forgiveness from that somebody. But now it is too late. No time for asking forgiveness. Being sick, you are in no condition to pray more and go out and start giving charity.

You are in such a state of panic that you can’t think straight. You try to think of a du’a, but your mind becomes foggy and you can’t remember any du’a. The only thing you remember in this panicky state is Istighfar! You start saying Astaghfirullah. You are begging to Allah (SWT) to give you more time. You pray your obligatory prayers with full focus just lying on the bed. Thank God you knew about Taiyamum and praying the Salah lying down. You don’t remember how the night passes between praying to Allah (SWT) and dozing off.

Finally, morning comes. Your family knocks on the door. Everyone is smiling! Your COVID-19 test results came out negative. You thank Allah (SWT) and pray Salah with such sincerity that you have never shown before. You are a changed man now. You feel like Allah (SWT) wanted to give you this shake-up to make you realize that you are not doing enough to bypass Jahannum. ---

The above scenario could happen to any of us (God forbid). But Alhamdulillah we are safe and healthy in our homes now. That being said, it is a reality that each one of us is going back to Allah (SWT). How we go, we don’t know. This pandemic is a wake-up call for every one of 1.5 Billion Muslims today. Allah (SWT) is giving each one of us a shake up. A warning to come to the right way.

We are so caught up in this world that we hardly think of our after life. We are so busy in making this 80-90 year life in this world a perfect life that we forget about our million years of life in the Akhirah. We forget that each one of us has only one option: either Jannah or Jahannam. And we take Jahannum really casually, because we don’t really think about it in detail.

By the time a Muslim reaches the middle age, whether that person is religious or not a religious person, that person pretty much knows the phases one must go through after we die. There is hardly any Muslim out there that doesn’t know that there will be questions asked in the grave, or the questions on the Day of Judgement. Every Muslim knows about the accountability of our every action in front of Allah (SWT) on the Day of Judgement. Everyone knows there are angels with us 24/7 who are writing our every action whether right or wrong. Every Muslim knows about the bridge of Siraat. Every Muslim knows, whether religious or not, about the punishment of Hellfire. So now the big question arises: Why are we so nonchalant about our afterlife?

Allah (SWT) has given us this pandemic to ponder and think. One should think about this great event which none of us has had to go through before in our whole lives. It is Allah’s wisdom that he has made us confined to our homes so that we should think about our lives in this world and the next and change our ways. It is actually a blessing from Allah (SWT) that he is giving us only a jolt instead of giving us a full-blown punishment for the actions of the human race.

From Islam’s perspective everyone of us should be prepared to die any day. Prophet SAW used to remember death 100 times, or sometimes 70 times in one day. Allah (SWT) Himself says that He takes our souls when we are asleep. So, when going to sleep, we should be prepared that we won’t get up the next day. This is the true spirit of Islam! But do we follow it? No, we don’t. We are so busy in our everyday activities of doing this and going there. Dinners and Lunches with friends have become our norm.

“It is Allah Who takes away the souls at the time of their death, and those that die not during their sleep. He keeps those (souls) for which He has ordained death and sends the rest for a term appointed. Verily, in this are signs for a people who think deeply” (39:42)

We are more worried about what people will say than what Allah will say. Life has become a big rush. This pandemic has made our lives slow down. Hopefully, inshaAllah, the world, or at least the Muslim Ummah will come out of this pandemic a better Muslim Ummah, just like our beloved Prophet wanted us to be. Ameen.

Quranic Reference: https://quran.com/

Photo by Christophe maertens on Unsplash