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[ Thursday, January 15, 2004 ]

 

The Lives of Man: The Second Life (Dunya): Decrepitude

VI. Decrepitude

 According to Ibn al-Jawzi, it extends from age seventy onward.

 People become weak in all their senses, limbs, and faculties.

 The “worst time of life” [ardhal al-‘umur] = senility and the loss of one’s mental faculties. The Prophet (pbuh) used to pray for protection from this.

 Poem: “The delight of life is health and youth,
And when they leave a man, they’re gone.
When an old man grows weary, he is not tired of life
It is only of his weariness that he worries”

 Hadith: “Let none of you wish for death, [for you are] either doing well and thus may increase, or doing evil and thus enjoying the chance to make amends.”

 God may put baraka into some of his chosen servants’ short lives, which then become of more and wider benefit than the long lives of others. The Muslim Nation has enormous baraka.

 Decrepitude ends most commonly with a fatal illness and—uncommonly—with death without illness.

 Cutting hopes and remembering death often are desirable and recommended, while long hopes and being oblivious of death are repugnant.

 The Prophet (pbuh) was asked, “Shall anyone be resurrected among the martyrs who is not one of them?” and he replied, “Yes, those who remember death twenty times each day and night.” When he was asked who the intelligent were, he replied, “Those who remember death most often, and prepare for it best. They are the intelligent ones, who have gained the honor of this world and a noble rank in the Hereafter.”

 Hadith: “Work for the dunya as though you were to live forever, and work for the akhira as though you were to die tomorrow.” The traditional interpretation of the hadith is “Work for the dunya without haste, and for the akhira with great urgency.”

next post: The Lives of Man: The Second Life (Dunya): Sickness and Death

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