9. PREPARE FOR WHAT COMES AFTER DEATH
It is a must for each cautious and intelligent person to gather the supplies needed before his departure [from this life]. For he never knows when his hour of death will strike or know when his soul will be called back!
Numerous are the number of people whom I witnessed that were befooled by their youthfulness. They forgot the loss of their peers, and were manipulated by their longing hopes (tul al-amai) thinking [that they will live long].
A scholar may say to himself, ‘Today, I will occupy myself with learning (7/w) and then practice what I have learnt the day after!’ But then he becomes lenient with his shortcomings on the grounds that needs to have a rest, and delays taking all that is need to establish his repentance (tawbah). Moreover, he neither avoids backbiting (ghiba) or listening to the backbiting of others nor does he mind earning money from dubious sources, in the hope all these sins will be erased with piety (warn). All the while, he forgets that death may strike him at any moment.
The intelligent person is one who minds the duty necessitated by every moment of his life, so that if death strikes, he already knows that he is prepared and ready. If he lives longer than what was expected, he will be able to increase the balance of his good deeds.
(source: al-Hafiz Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-jawzl [d. 597AH] “CAPTURED THOUGHTS being” a translation of his masterpiece ‘Sayd al-K hatir)
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