At that time...

Once again, their cry shall be: مٌا فَرَّطْتُ فِــي جَنْبِ اللٌّهِ “Alas my grief since I was unmindful of Allah!” Sometimes a teacher may say to a student, “While you are young and have the ability, free time, are not busy with a wife and children and the difficulties of life are not chasing you, focus on your studies!” However, the student may not listen to the advice and later on, when the student's life has passed him by, he would realize that he does not have the physical strength to study, nor is his soul in a state to take in the knowledge.

At this point, he would realize that no matter what profession he wishes to go into, he must be educated. Since he has no education, he would be compelled to a life of either being worthless to society or performing menial labour jobs that are below his status! At that time, would he become regretful and wish to himself that if only when he was young, he had listened to his elders! He would wish that he was young again such that he would, this time around, study properly!

However as we know, it is not possible for his youth to return to him. The relationship between this life and the next life is the same! It has been recorded in Nahj al-Balagha that the Commander of the Faithful, ‘Ali b.

Abi Talib (as) has stated: “The deceased that you are now carrying upon your shoulders (to the graveyard) and that you carry every day are the best preachers for you!” فَكَفى وَاعِظاً بِمَوْتى… “Sufficient for you as a preacher are the deceased ones…” When the deceased are brought to the graveyard, they would think to themselves, “It is as if we were never even living in this world!” All we need to do is take a cursory glance at the burial ceremony and how the dirt is thrown over the dead person; how the Suratul Fatiha is read over them and then how we say farewell to the deceased.

When we look back at the entire episode, it is as if the person had been in that graveyard for the past one hundred years and that the life of the next world has been his abode since the beginning! As soon as a person dies, others rush to perform the last rites and bury the person so that the smell of the body does not come out and annoy others!