What is death?

Of all the stages through which man will have to pass, death is the most certain. It is possible for one not to be endowed with life at all, but one who is alive is sure, also, to die. Everyone who is alive now will be dead sometime in the future. One day the eyes of those who see will fade and their tongues freeze into silence. Every human being will one day find himself standing at death’s door­step, with this world behind him, and ahead of him the eternal world of the hereafter. He will be leaving this world, never to return, and entering a world which he will never leave. In the world, which he is entering, there will be no opportunity for action; there will be only salvation or damnation in accordance with one’s actions on earth.

While life is indefinite, death is absolutely definite. We are only alive because we have not yet died, and there is no fixed time for death. We are forever advancing towards it; death is closer to us than life itself. People consider themselves alive, but it would be truer to say that they are dead. No one can be sure when death will come; it might strike at any instant. Death, then, is not some future event; we are already as good as dead. For this reason, the Prophet Mohammad has told us to think of ourselves as lying in the grave.