After having lost my mother twenty years ago, my grandfather a year later, my grandmother nearly three years ago, and my father just last month, along with much else in my own life, I felt it was time to reflect on what I have learned from loss.
Loss is an inevitable part of living, for this world is not our permanent abode. Furthermore, by divine will and wisdom, it is death and loss that in reality teach us how to truly live, and without facing death, we remain asleep, unconscious and immersed in illusion.
Therefore, for they who are wise, we will look towards eternity, and instead of wasting our time, energy, life and love on that which is ultimately of little consequence, we will learn how to focus our time on earth on that which is most valuable.
In my humble opinion, and based upon the guidance and teachings of the last of God’s great prophets and messengers to humanity, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, the following are what I believe warrant, merit and require our time, life, love and energy.
Your Most Valuable Resource: Time
While worldly attainments such as money and property may come and go, time on the other hand only goes. Our time is limited and finite, and we can never recover a day that has been spent.
How often do we hear those who have lost a loved one say that they would give everything they owned and possessed just to spend another day or even an hour with the loved one they have now lost?
We need not wait until we’ve lost to live well, honorably and wisely. And so, the following two points are what matter most to both the health and happiness of human beings, as well as what is most pleasing to our Lord and Creator.
What Matters Most: #1, Faith
While the body and the mind will end with this life, along with everything worldly that we may attain or possess, the spirit on the other hand will continue its eternal journey towards the Divine Presence of God. Therefore, of all that we can grow and develop while we have the opportunity to do so, the cultivation of faith is most important.
Furthermore, it is faith that enables us to live in such a way so as to concurrently please our Creator and increasingly experience happiness, satisfaction and success in our lives.
It is faith that is the key to human potential and the awakening of the power of the heart, that which transcends the limitations of this world and is greater than both time and space.
What Matters Most: #2, Family
The noble and blessed Messenger of God ﷺ continually emphasized the importance of maintaining ties of kinship, and went so far as to say that they who severed familial bonds were not of him.
When we maintain and nurture strong bonds based in familial kinship, we are healthier and stronger. It is no wonder then that the modern world and the machinations of the enemy of humanity are focused on weakening and dismantling the family unit.
As believers, we must make a conscious stand to preserve the bonds of kinship, maintain strong familial relations and connections, and again begin thinking collectively rather than individualistically.
What Makes Success Possible: Humility
Not only does humility, and excellence and beauty of character, lead us to the truth and reality of religion and its purpose—the evolution of the human being—it is humility that also makes possible healthy, happy and harmonious relationships.
It is the ego, and its arrogance, pride and self-centeredness, that results in separation and conflict. Yet by humbling the self, we can experience life with others as it was meant to be experienced—with love.
Thus, in order to truly reach to the divine pleasure of Allah Almighty, and to experience health, happiness and harmony in our relationships, most importantly our closest and nuclear family relationships, we must continually cultivate humility, and the patience, compassion, forgiveness and forbearance it engenders.
8 Responses
Dear brother Ihsan,
Assalamu alaikum. Thank you for sharing these lessons learned from your loss. Just two months ago I lost my sister too. My parents were also sick. Alhamdulillah, they are recovered now. I feel like I had been going through a surreal time. This happened first time in my life and made me think a lot too. I have seen people dying in the hospitals in front of their family members. Death. What an unavoidable and irreversible reality! Yet, how little we are aware of that! Now I feel like: we only have ‘some time’, which we call life, nothing else. We need to make sure the best use of this time. However, rather than becoming too busy for different things as you mentioned, i.e. money, fame etc., we must focus on spending the best quality time possible and that includes getting along with family and relatives, appreciating their presence and company. And, of course, we must develop a reflecting mind that always seek for a connection with Allah (SWT). May Allah (SWT) accept your and our efforts in this regard.
Best wishes,
Rashid
Bangladesh
Best and most blessed regards, brother Rashid. Thank you for sharing. Very well said. May God’s divine mercy, peace, light and protection be with you and your loved ones.
Salam Aleikum brother Ihsan,
Thank you so much for your reflection.
I also lost my mother and the pain is nothing like I ever experienced.
Could you please share your wisdom in one of your videos on how to deal with grief and loss and pain. How to come out purified and how to become closer to Allah and the ones who already transitioned.
May allah reward you
Marianne
Peace and blessings Marianne. Thank you for the suggestion, and yes, insha’Allah, with God’s will and grace, I will aim to share what He wills on the topic. Best and most blessed regards.
Br. Ihsan salaams, Shaykh Adeyinka Muhammad Mendes, (who was imam of our masjid in New Jersey) shared your videos and your websites links with me. Spiritual excellence and your personal website.
As you correctly pointed out the importance of family and maintaining family ties is the most important thing that, especially all Muslims and in general all of humanity need to re-learn.
Grown up people are disconnecting themselves from immediate family members, brothers and sisters and even very sadly, from their own parents. I know few cases where grown up, well to do professionals, who are in their 40s and 50s, are not even talking to their old parents, let alone visiting them or helping them with their financial and physical and health care needs. They spend more time with their friends and colleagues and in traveling and making money than with the parents who raised them, gave them comfortable houses to live in, paid for their education and took care of all their physical and mental needs. But after they grew up and became very successful and wealthy professionals, they abandoned and completely disassociated themselves from their parents.
May Allaah SWT save us from committing such grave sin and give us taufeeq to realize the value of our parents and our family and keep the ties of relationships with them and serve them for all their needs to gain the pleasure of Allaah S.W.T. Ameen
Thank you, Akhtar, for sharing your insights and reflections. Ameen, may Allah Almighty protect us from such ignorance and arrogance, for being ungrateful is absolutely disliked by God and equated with unbelief throughout the Holy Qur’an, which expressly states to respect and honor one’s parents, and that by doing so, one reveres the Creator. To your divine and eternal success.
Thank you very much, brother Ihsan. Since I discovered you on youtube I have learnt a lot. I now know that spiritual connection with the Almighty Allah is the main purpose of Islam and that the development of a noble character and consistent spiritual exercises are the tools for this all-important connection. May Allah increase your knowledge and reward your efforts. Wassalam.
Allahumma ameen, thank you, Sumaila, and may Allah Almighty increase us all in light and sacred knowledge that leads Home to His Divine Presence. To your divine and eternal success.