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When Life Begins --------- ---------
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When Life Begins ---------
punishments... punishments that were waiting to have their hunger
relieved by stones, and by people with hearts of stone. It was a day of
festivity for these punishments for; their eternal hunger was about to
be quenched. Due to the intense fear of these punishments, these
criminals of God were running amok in search of a sanctuary... but in
this flat plane, there was nowhere to hide and no sanctuary to find.
Everywhere there was calamity, disaster and hardships...and for these
stone hearted criminals, a never-ending misfortune.
===============
No one knows how many years...
or how many centuries have
elapsed in this condition. This is the place of adjudication and the Day of
Judgement... a new life has begun... a never-ending one. I too, stand in
this place of Judgement, lost and speechless, staring with vacant eyes.
In front of me, countless people run and fall in a chaotic manner. In the
background, an echo of noises emanates from the roaring flames and is
mixed with the shouts, cries, and wails of people. People taunt each
other, hurl abuses, and blame each other; many are engaged in scuffles.
Around me, some are holding their heads, while others pour dirt on
their faces. I see some people hiding their faces in shame; others are
bearing disgrace. Some are banging their heads on stones; others over
there are beating their chests. Some are
blaming themselves while
others are having a go at their mothers, fathers, wives, children, friends,
or leaders, holding them responsible for their ruin. All of them have the
same problem; the Day of Judgement has arrived, and they have not
prepared for it.
Now! They may blame others or themselves, they may mourn or be
patient, but now, nothing can be altered. Now! There is only a wait, a
wait for the appearance of the Master of the Universe, following which
the accountability will commence, and the destiny of every person shall
be determined with justice.
Suddenly, a person near me shouted:
“Ah.... I was better off dead! Even the pit of the grave was better
than this.”
I had been standing silent and speechless for a long time on this flat
plane, completely unaware of the happenings around me, when the
near-yelling voice of this person brought me back from the valleys of my
thoughts, into the realm of reality. In an instant, everything became
afresh in my mind, from start to end. My story, the story of the world
and the story of life... all began to run in my mind like the reel of a film.
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I was at home at the onset of that dreadful day. It is not possible for
me to explain the location of that home. For
the casual observer, it was
the dark pit of a grave; in fact, this was a door to the real world of the
Hereafter... a door that could not be opened back into the world. I did
not wish to open that door anyway. For, after passing through this door,
I had now entered the world behind the veil... the world of Barzakh. It
was a world that contained never-ending comforts for me. That day, my
close, long-standing, and dear friend Saleh had come to visit me. Saleh
was the angel who was assigned to my right side when I was alive. His
closeness and presence was always a source of immense solace for me
in my life after death and as usual, we were having a pleasant
conversation that day. I asked him during that conversation:
“My friend, tell me something, why have you been assigned to
me?”
Saleh replied in a serious manner, “You see, Abdullah, my
companion and I were assigned to you when you were living in the
world. He used to record your bad deeds and I, the good ones. You
would not let me sit idle for even two minutes. Sometimes you would
be reciting
supplications for the Almighty, sometimes shedding tears in
his remembrance and sometimes praying for fellow human beings; you
would spend your time in ritual prayers, your money in God’s way and
your energy working for the welfare of people. In short, even when you
were not doing such deeds, you would at least have a welcoming smile
on your face for other people. Therefore, I was always busy in recording
some activity of yours. You almost killed me because of overwork and
exhaustion! However, you know we
angels are not like you humans; we
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