Everlastingness and Paradise Are there, and not here!

 

Do you wish to stay young, healthy, rich, and immortal? If you desire these things, you will not find them in this world, however, you can find them in the Hereafter. Allah, the Exalted, has decreed misery and impermanence for this world. He called this life a trifle and an enjoyment of deception.

 

There is a well-known poet from long ago, who for the greater part of his life lived a life of penury. In the prime of his youth, he wanted money and could not get it. He wanted a wife too, but he failed in that pursuit as well. When he became old, with white hair and brittle bones, he became rich. Many women were now willing to marry him and he lived a comfortable life. The irony of his story is that he was poor when he was able to enjoy all comforts and that he became rich when he could no longer enjoy the pleasures of life. He composed these verses in the latter part of his life:

 

"What I desired to own when I was only twenty, Came into my possession after turning eighty. Young Turkish girls now surround me, Singing and wearing silks and jewels. They say, ‘Your moans keep us awake all night long, So what is it that you complain of?’ I said, ‘Of being an octogenarian.”’

 

(‘Did we not give you lives long enough, so that whosoever would receive admonition, ---- could receive it? And the warner came to you...)                   (Qur’an 35: 37)

 

(...and they thought that they would never return to Us.)

(Qur’an 28: 39)

 

(And this life of the world is only amusement and play!)

(Qur’an 29: 64)

 

"The example of this world is that of a rider who seeks shade under a tree --- to rest for a short period of time --- and then he gets up and leaves."