Is this going to be my first complete series? In case you haven’t seen, read the companion piece on fear of losing / kiasu here.
Also if you are reading this, make doa/prayers for all our loved ones who have left us, including my grandaunt Zaiton binte Saini who passed away yesterday, pushing me to write this today instead of sometime in the future. She was a good lady, and I pray to be reunited in jannah.
thinking about death in my 30s
Thinking about anything in my 30s feels distinctly different from 20s (and obviously, 10s). I feel like it has something to do with just the quantity of experiences you’ve built up and stored away, to the point where you can start comparing and making connections.
In our youth, everything is new. In adulthood, everything is an echo of the past.
My biggest reflection is that kiasi and fear of death isn’t just about your own. You’ll face your own death only once – the end. But before that, you’ll face the death of others over and over and over again. Pain, in different shades.
earliest memory of death is my nenek, atuk, yai. always surreal, but it was real. always crying. all the people left behind. but the first person I missed was my abang who i never met. my junior’s older brother died in a motorcycle accident and he wouldve been about my age now, and his funeral was where I understood deeply that young people can die too. Dr Aldila, my Women & Politics lecturer well beloved, i was so excited to actually get to study with her after all I heard, and it was just as amazing as they said. and halfway through the semester she passed away.
the list will only get longer, as everyone ages, as I know more people. in life, there is loss, great painful loss – and the loss of loved ones is one of the most painful to bear that even imagining or talking about losing a spouse, family member or friend shakes me up entirely.
It’s impossible then to talk about death without talking about religion and God. I have a good friend who, upon thinking deeply about what comes after death? – both for her beloved mother and herself – took the shahadah.
Science might tell us how someone died, but they’ll never ever be able to tell us why. For this, I turn to God.
on fear of the inevitable
Allah mentions death (الموت) in the Qur’an 34 times – 3 of which are God’s promise that “every soul will taste death.” Every soul. From the smallest, most seemingly insignificant alive being to the greatest of His creation, the Prophet himself.
Find and listen to a narration of the day the Prophet (peace and blessings upon him) died. You’ll hear about the immediate impact it had on the Muslims (his family members, companions and followers); Umar in denial threatening to kill anyone who said the Prophet had died, until Abu Bakr (ra) put an end to everything by quoting this word of Allah previously revealed, and they’d say it was as if they had never heard it before:
Family of Imran (3:144)
وَمَا مُحَمَّدٌ إِلَّا رَسُولٌۭ قَدْ خَلَتْ مِن قَبْلِهِ ٱلرُّسُلُ ۚ أَفَإِي۟ن مَّاتَ أَوْ قُتِلَ ٱنقَلَبْتُمْ عَلَىٰٓ أَعْقَـٰبِكُمْ ۚ وَمَن يَنقَلِبْ عَلَىٰ عَقِبَيْهِ فَلَن يَضُرَّ ٱللَّهَ شَيْـًۭٔا ۗ وَسَيَجْزِى ٱللَّهُ ٱلشَّـٰكِرِينَ ١٤٤
Muḥammad is no more than a messenger; other messengers have gone before him. If he were to die or to be killed, would you regress into disbelief? Those who do so will not harm Allah whatsoever. And Allah will reward those who are grateful.
— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran
We’ll all taste death. Despite the best efforts of humans (now and in the past) to avoid dying, death is inevitable.
We know that. What we don’t know (or has been hidden from us) is when, where and how it will arrive.
One thing that does – with no running away, no knowledge except that it’s coming – is that it leaves just one thing left between now and that moment: Life.
When you’re too busy, whether consciously or not, fearing death, then you won’t have time to live a good life. Rasulullah said about us:
(hadith on wahn)
a good death, a good life
Like any loss then, death can be beared if we know the reason why.
Like any fear then, fear of death can be overcome only with the courage to pursue the inner truth within ourselves.
And so too, like any fear, I hope to be able to see the one who created that fear, created the thing we’re afraid of and created us – with grand purpose, meaning and love:
to live a good life.