Shade of Trees

Abdullah ibn Mas’ud (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) once slept on a woven mat, and the ridges of the mat left marks on his side. We said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, if only you had a cushion for yourself.’ He replied, ‘What do I have to do with this world? I am in this world only like a traveler who takes shade under a tree, then departs and leaves it.’”

If we were to reflect on the state of the world we live in, when we confront the point of death that we fear, the anxiety we have endured, the illness that exhausted us, and the regret that wearied us would all vanish, and all our human emotions would go out like a black screen. At that moment, the curtain of life would fall, ushering in the life after death. After about twenty minutes, the brain would be deprived of oxygen and blood, and brain cells and nerves would gradually die. After eight hours, the lungs would no longer be suitable even for donation. After forty days, tissues would collapse, dark fluids would be expelled, and facial features would disappear, as bones begin to emerge, initiating the structural transformation of the body you cared for throughout your life.

The inevitable outcome of these stages prompts us to reflect: Does everything we do truly warrant the effort? What is the value of your dreams if the fate of the successful and the unsuccessful is the same? Is your life’s priority truly yours, or is it merely society’s priority? Does that ambition justify the accompanying effort? What is your ultimate goal? What is the meaning of happiness? Does the pursuit of wealth and fame actually bring happiness? What is the unfailing investment? What becomes of the muscles we build? How can we achieve self-sufficiency? Is our destiny tied to others? What did we do with the time that slipped through our fingers? Will memories also depart? The faces of loved ones? The laughter of those who love us? After a century, what relevance will we have? Will our names be immortalized, or will they fade from the identities of our seventh-generation descendants? And the properties we strive to acquire every day—whose will they be after decades? Is death merely a passing event or a turning point?

The truth you must recognize after your inevitable death is that, at the very second you pass, thousands of others will be born. Their lives will not differ from ours, for human ambitions, circumstances, and pains are the same. We all drink from the same cup. Life will continue toward its destination; the sun will rise, birds will sing, people will sing and dance, even if they are among your loved ones. The wheel of life will keep turning in all its institutional and social forms, and you? You will be forgotten. Even if your memory endures for fifty years, it will eventually fade. As the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish said: “You will be forgotten, as if you never existed. You will be forgotten, like the fall of a bird, like an abandoned church, like a fleeting love, like a footprint in the snow.”