Resources from Muslim Traditions
Qur’an 2:155-157
And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient, Who, when disaster strikes them, say, “Indeed we belong to G-d, and indeed to Him we will return.” Those are the ones upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy. And it is those who are the [rightly] guided.
Hadith Sahih al-Bukhari 7377
Verily, to God belongs what He has taken, to Him belongs what He bestows, and everything has an assigned time with Him, so be patient, and hope for a reward.
Hadith Hisn al-Muslim 157
“O God, pardon our living and our dead, and our present and our absent, and our young and our old, and our men and women, O God, whom you keep alive among us, keep them alive upon Islam and whom you cause to die, let them die upon Faith”
Bediüzzaman Said Nursi on Death and Dying
The Seventh Phrase: “And creates death”
He is the one who causes death. He discharges you from the duty of life, changes your abode from this transitory world, and releases you from the labour of service. That is, He takes you from a transient life to an immortal one. This phrase, then, shouts out the following to ephemeral jinn and man:
Here is good news for you! Death is not destruction, or nothingness, or annihilation; it is not cessation or extinction; it is not eternal separation, or non-existence, or a chance event; it is not authorless obliteration. Rather, it is to be discharged by the Author who is All-Wise and All-Compassionate; it is a change of abode. It is to be despatched to eternal bliss, to your true home. It is the door of union to the Intermediate Realm, which is where you will meet with ninety-nine per cent of your friends. (Nursi, The Letters)
The Eleventh Phrase: “And with Him all things have their end”
The phrase announces this good news as well: O man! Do not be apprehensive, imagining that you are going to extinction, non-existence, nothingness, darkness, oblivion, decay, and dissolution, and that you will drown in multiplicity. You are going not to extinction, but to permanence. You are being impelled not to non-existence, but to perpetual existence. You are going to enter not darkness, but the world of light. And you are returning to your true owner, to the seat of the Pre-Eternal Monarch. You will not drown in multiplicity, you will take your rest in the realm of unity. You are bound not for separation, but for union.” (Nursi, The Letters)
When I Die
Poem by Muslim theologian Mawalana Jalaluddin Rumi
When I die
when my coffin
is being taken out
you must never think
i am missing this world
don’t shed any tears
don’t lament or
feel sorry
i’m not falling
into a monster’s abyss
when you see
my corpse is being carried
don’t cry for my leaving
i’m not leaving
i’m arriving at eternal love
when you leave me
in the grave
don’t say goodbye
remember a grave is
only a curtain
for the paradise behind
you’ll only see me
descending into a grave
now watch me rise
how can there be an end
when the sun sets or
the moon goes down
it looks like the end
it seems like a sunset
but in reality it is a dawn
when the grave locks you up
that is when your soul is freed
have you ever seen
a seed fallen to earth
not rise with a new life
why should you doubt the rise
of a seed named human
have you ever seen
a bucket lowered into a well
coming back empty
why lament for a soul
when it can come back
like Joseph from the well
when for the last time
you close your mouth
your words and soul
will belong to the world of
no place no time
A Letter of Condolence on the Death of a Child
And in His Name, be He glorified! And there is nothing but it glorifies Him with praise.(17:44)
My Dear Brother of the hereafter, Hafız Halid Efendi! In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. And give good news to the patient, * Those who when afflicted with calamity say: To God do we belong and to Him is our return.(2:155-6)
My brother, your child’s death saddened me, but, “the command is God’s,”(40:12) being resigned to the divine decree and submitting to divine determining are marks of Islam. May Almighty God grant you all patience, and may He make the deceased a helper and intercessor for you in the hereafter. I shall explain five points which are truly good news and offer real consolation for you, and for pious believers like you.
