Live Your Life as if You’re Dying Tomorrow

If I told you that you are going to die tomorrow, let’s say that you’re 100% sure you’re going to die tomorrow, what would go through your mind?

 What will you do?

For example, will I be thinking about all the prayers that I’ve missed? Will I be thinking about the zakat which I still owe? Or will I be thinking about the debts which I have taken are halal or Haram? Will I be thinking about the people whom I have wronged, I must make it up to them? The people I’ve backbitten, the people I have hurt, the people I’ve stolen from…

 Will I be thinking about my parents and what I have brought in shortcomings towards them? My wife, husband, children, my family relationships, my neighbors… I will think about every shortcoming.

 How many young people I have known who died and their last death was on a nutrition that was from Haram. A life filled with a purpose, and if you were to ask them what kind of purpose this is? And they knew that they were going to die, the next day they will respond:

“I cannot afford to die tomorrow! I can’t face Allah.”

What kind of thinking would go through that person? Their whole life will change as if they are living in the hereafter; they’re going to fix their deeds. And suddenly everything that used to stress them out of this worldly life, people who hurt them, for example, people who wronged them, people who upset them, suddenly they don’t mean anything anymore.

Who cares about it right now? I’ve got before me my own deeds and my own self to answer for: who have I hurt, who have I backbitten, who have I upset, who have I taken the right from?

I will be thinking about myself. And that belief in the hereafter is what we need.

Remember Death

Allah says in the Quran:

 And the intoxication of death will bring the truth; that is what you were trying to avoid. (50:19)

 Why does Allah speak in that manner?

Allah is saying to us as if it’s something that is inevitable will happen to every single person. And there is no need to prove it because in another verse Allah calls that “yaqeen” which means that which is certain. And no one in the world can deny it, no atheist, no Muslim, no Christian, no Jew. Death is death and it will happen to everybody.

 Let’s talk about the end, the reality; this is what really matters. You can go on vacations, you can go on holidays… You can go wherever you want, in the end every single one of us will come to the final meeting place: death.

 No one can deny it; we will all end up there, just like every river comes from the same place and ends up in the same place.

About Bilal Assad
Bilal Assad was born in Williamstown, Melbourne, Australia. He started his Islamic studies at a very early age and acquired his Shariah knowledge in Lebanon; and continued tertiary education in Bio-Medical Science in Australia. Bilal has been offering his service to the community for many years and has been working with the Islamic Society of Victoria for over ten years.