What happens in death?

Nowadays, death has become very cheap, but nobody knows what death is.  If a person hasn’t eaten sugar in his whole life, how can he know the taste of sugar?  Ask the one who has eaten sugar and he will tell you its taste.  Similarly ask the deceased about the taste of death.  They have tasted it.  They are the ones who know it best.  It is really surprising that if a person is in a session of luxury and play and fun and thinks that a policeman will come and give him some blows with his stick, all the pleasure will be dissipated.  On the other hand, everyone knows that the angel of death will bring the tortures of death right in the middle of heedlessness, but this doesn’t spoil any pleasure.  What else can be the reason for this except heedlessness, ignorance and misunderstanding?  The agony of losing one’s life is known to only those who have tasted it.  Let’s walk in the graveyards and mausoleums and listen to what they say.

 

Anecdote:  Hadhrat ‘Isa (May peace be upon him) resurrected a dead man and asked him:  How is the taste of death?  That man said:  Hadhrat!  Fifty years have passed since my death, but the taste of death still lingers.  I had to bear so many agonies that even now the heart can’t forget them. 

 

If you don’t have the power like Hadhrat ‘Isa (May peace be upon him) to hear something from the dead, then just listen to what their conditions are telling us.  In effect, they are telling us, “Friends!  Don’t be deceived with the life of this world.  You can’t trust it at all.  Like a flower, it blooms only for 2 days.  Then it is nothing.

 

The condition of the dead is again telling us:  Take heed from our conditions.  Like you, we were also heedless.  What possession of the world did we not enjoy?  Like you, what deeds of the world did we not indulge in?  What is there now?  Nothing.

 

To listen to this talk of the dead, we need ears which heed warnings.  Alas!  We don’t have them as well.  Fine.  Listen to them who have known the taste of death through unveiling (Kashf) in the same manner as those who have tasted it through death.  The summary of what they say is that if a person remains alive and his wife, children die before him.  All his wealth is destroyed.  The agony his heart feels in such a situation is the agony felt by a person when everyone remains and this person will be separated from them.  The real agony is that separation, be it from this side or from that side.  Just think about the condition of death.  Everything is being separated from this person.  The hands tell the feet:  Brother!  Accept my greeting.  Now we can’t meet until the Day of Judgment.  The eyes tell the ears:  Brother!  Accept my greetings.  Now we will meet only on the Day of Judgment.  Thus, every part of the body is bidding goodbye to every other part.  It is being separated and this person is lying there seeing this deathly atmosphere.  Here, the wife is being separated, the children are being separated, the relatives are separated, friends and acquaintances are being separated.  With what effort had he built the house.  Now he can’t live in it.  Sometimes, one is reminded of the livestock and other times of some other property.  Now the time is such that all things that were gathered with such yearning are all being left behind.  With great longing, he looks at each and every article and just grimaces and keeps quiet.  Here, the heirs are saying:  What property he is leaving?  There the angels are saying among themselves:  What deeds has he brought.  He is lying there helpless listening to them.

 

As if this wasn’t enough, the saying, “People are asleep.  They will awaken when they die” will be fulfilled.  Good and bad deeds, whose benefit and loss was hidden in the world is now revealed.  The engagements of this world were the veil.  The world is being left behind and the veil is being raised.  The harm of whatever sins he had done comes before him.  At that time, there will be such a longing that the punishment of fire will seem better than that.  Along with the agony of separation, this agony of longing is also gathered.

 

There was a king.  He had a servant who would commit various mistakes and was thinking that the king doesn’t know it.  At one point, the servant was caught and at that time, he gets to know that the king was seeing each and every action of his with his own eye.  He didn’t know it.  Now think, what embarrassment, regret and fear will the servant about the king.  In the same way, when at the time of death it is revealed that I am submerged in sin from head to toe and was committing every sin before the Lord Almighty, then the regret, embarrassment and fear which the dying person feels can be understood only by that servant and by none else.  It is rooted in our ears that all sins are forgiven with repentance (Tauba).  It is true but when?  When repentance is performed in life itself.  At the time of death when one tries to repent, one sees that the door of repentance has closed.  Don’t ask about the despair of that moment.  Here separation of everything and there the longing of the harms of the sins.  Here the regret, embarrassment and fear of committing every sin before the Lord Almighty and there the door of repentance has closed.  The dying person is only one and all these crowd on him.  At that time, paradise or hell comes before us and whichever is the abode of that person, it is shown.  This has its own terror.  The recording angels come and tell that person:  You blackguard!  We have always been in distress because of you.  We were sick of writing your transgressions of Allah’s commands.  The dying person just stares at them.  In these trying times, Satan comes and stands there and tries to steal the faith of that person.  Then the dying person sees that the angel of death has come and is drawing out his soul.  For sinners, the angel of death comes in a terrifying form, dark, hair standing on end, giving off flames from the mouth and nose.

 

Now when life ebbs away, it feels as if each and every fiber of the body is being cut with scissors or it feels as if a fine cloth has been put over thorns and is being pulled and is getting cut into ribbons.  Similarly, one feels as if each and every fragment is evaporating.  Thirst will be so great as if one is being cooked in boiling oil.  Shortness of breath is such as if the very heavens and the earth have met and this guy has been caught in the middle and it feels as if one is being passed through the eye of the needle.

 

Then each and every part of the body dies gradually.  First both the feet give up.  Then the ankles and then the thighs.  Each part of the body tightens and stiffens anew.  At last this reaches the neck.  Then, the dying person stops seeing this world and its inhabitants.  The greatest difficulty at this point is whether one dies on the true faith or not.  Thus, life is drawn out with such difficulties.  If one were finished the moment the soul is drawn out, then we could even have bore it, but no.  What is death but that the lamp is extinguished and the light remains.

[Excerpted from Qiyamatnama of Hadhrat Muhaddith-e-Deccan]