“Be just; this is closest to being God-Conscious.” ~ (Qur’an 5:8)
“With life as short as a half-taken breath, don’t plant anything but love.” ~Rumi
The Qur’an describes the Day of Judgment as the day when all human beings are resurrected to face God and to be held accountable for their good and bad deeds. Similar to biblical accounts, the Qur’an describes this day with vivid imagery. The Qur’an tells us that the Earth will shake (99:1), the mountains will be like carded wool (101:5), people will be scattered like moths (101:4), the stars will fall from the sky (81:2), the oceans will boil over (81:6), the sun and moon will merge (75:9), the heavens will be rolled up like scrolls (21:104), and the dead will be summoned back to life (36:51). On this day, all of existence will bow before God alone. This is the day when the scales of justice left uneven on Earth will be balanced and God’s mercy will be more abundant than we could ever imagine.
No one know when they will die or when the Day of Judgment will come. The only thing that is in our power is how we actively choose to live the one life that Allah has given us in this very moment. Instead of worrying about when we will die, it serves us better to focus on what we can do to positively affect this world. As the eleventh-century Persian scholar Abu Sa’id Abul-Khayr said, “You were born crying and everyone around you was laughing. Strive to live in a way that when you die, you are laughing and everyone around you is crying.”
It is death that calls us to seize the day and be “sons and daughters of the moment,” living and honoring the present as a priceless blessing given to us by God. We don’t get to decide when or how we will die, but we can choose how we live. In fact, in one narration, when a man asked the Prophet Mohammad when the Day of Judgment would be, the Prophet profoundly replied by saying, “What have you prepared for it?” The Prophet was confronting the man with what really matters. In another narration the Prophet says, “If the Final Hour comes while you have a palm sapling in your hands and it is possible to plant it before the Hour comes, you should plant it.”
The unknown nature of our death inspires us to apologize when we are wrong, to forgive others when they are wrong, to give freely of what we love, to not hold back our words of kindness, to be honest with our feelings, to pray with every ounce of our spirits, to not put off doing our soul’s work, to see this moment as the only moment we have, to manifest God’s qualities of love, mercy, compassion, and equality upon all people, without discrimination.
This blog is an excerpt from A. Helwa’s recently published best-selling book, “Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam.” Her book is available on Amazon.com
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About A. Helwa
A. Helwa believes that every single person on Earth is deeply loved by the Divine. She is a writer who has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers through her passionate, poetic, and love-based approach to spirituality. Her popular blog @quranquotesdaily, was established while obtaining her Masters in Divinity, as a means of helping others overcome personal and spiritual struggles on their journey of experiencing divine love.
With over 15 years of experience writing and speaking on Islam and spiritual development, A. Helwa draws from her personal experiences and traditional sources to help her readers access ‘Divine love in everyday life.’