The Reality of the Afterlife

Series Afterlife Faith

Deeds to Habit

The Reality of the Afterlife

As Muslims we have a strong conception of the afterlife, but sometimes we become too attached to what is in front of us. Faatimah Knight reminds us that when we get in moments of anxiety and stress, it's so important to ask ourselves: Are we thinking as people who believe this life is part of a much longer life? Or are we operating as people who believe this is the only life we have and we need to get much out of it before we pass?

Pre-Islamic Arabs sought eternality in temporality

Pre-Islamic Arabs did not have a clear conception of life after death. This affected what they thought about life and ultimately, how they behaved in the time that they felt they were given. They had a sense of eternality as it related to nature since they were in a desert which is a large expanse, and from the desert they could see the clarity of the stars in the universe. However they did not have a sense of eternality as it related to themselves.

A desire to taste eternality

Although the pre-islamic Arabs did not have a strong concept of the eternal soul, they craved eternality. They wanted to experience something of eternality, and to get as much of life as they could.

Just like today where we find people who do very extreme sports because they want to feel their most alive, pre-islamic Arabs wanted to feel their most alive and have a taste of what it meant to be free or without bounds.

Giving in to a hedonistic lifestyle

This desire of pre-islamic Arabs to taste eternality led many of them to engage in what we would consider hedonistic behaviour. Excessive drinking of alcohol, excessive partying, and extramarital relations for example. They'd be engaged in a lot of excess, and yet they were still pessimistic.

Poetry of suffering

Even though the pre-islamic Arabs were engaging in these extreme experiences, they had a pessimistic concept of life which they documented in their poetry. In their poems the pre-Islamic Arabs talked about how life was inevitably going to end, and how after death there was nothing else. They weeped about the things that will inevitably pass. And so they engaged in these extreme experiences to feel more alive. Interestingly, we find a parallel today in many aspects of our culture.

The Islamic concept of life and eternality

As Muslims we have a strong concept of the afterlife. We recognize that the worldly life is important, but it is a small part of our overall life. After we pass, our soul goes on to another phase of existence. We do not cease to exist after death, and so we don't have to feel this constraint to fit everything into a lifespan of 70-80 years.

When we're experiencing moments of intense anxiety, hopelessness, or stress, we can remind ourselves that this life is not all there is. We can ask ourselves, how much does this matter, in the balance of eternality and a never-ending life?

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This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.

00:01 We know from the Qur'an and from the history books that the pre-Islamic Arabs sought eternality

00:18 and temporality. That means that because they did not have a clear conception, most of them,

00:27 of the afterlife, of life after death, that this dramatically impacted how they thought

00:35 about the life that they had in front of them and how they behaved in that life, in the

00:43 time that they felt they were given. So they wanted to taste eternality, right? So it was

00:52 as if they had a concept of eternality, but they didn't believe that it was real, at least not for them as human beings, right? They didn't have a concept of an eternal soul,

01:07 right? They kind of just had a concept of their environment having this sort of eternality

01:17 to it, because they were in a desert, it's this large expanse, you can see the clarity

01:26 of the stars and the universe when you look up in there. They did have this sense of eternality

01:34 as it related to nature, but not as it related to themselves. But they craved it, they craved

01:41 eternality, they wanted to taste it. And in their wanting to experience something of eternality,

01:51 this led many of them into hedonistic practices, right? They wanted to, you know, get as much

02:00 of life as they could. And, you know, just like today, where we find people who do very extreme sports, or just sort of extreme practices, because they say they want to feel their most

02:15 alive. Arabs, pre-Islamic Arabs had a concept of that too, of wanting to feel their most

02:24 alive and have a taste of what it meant to be without bounds, to be free or unconstrained.

02:36 And because of this, many of them engaged in what we would consider hedonistic behavior,

02:41 right? So excessive drinking of alcohol, excessive partying, you know, extramarital relations

02:51 to an excess, they engaged in a lot of excess. And, and yet they were still pessimistic,

03:00 right? So we find in the poetry of the pre-Islamic Arabs, they talked a lot about how life was

03:09 just inevitably going to end and that after death, there is nothing else. And poetry in

03:16 which they're weeping about the things that will inevitably pass. And how as much as they

03:24 want to live and enjoy life, the more they live, the more they know that they are going

03:32 to pass. So they still have this pessimistic conception of life, even though they have these extremes, right? They wanted to engage in these extreme experiences to make them

03:44 feel more alive. And we find interestingly, a parallel today in many aspects of our culture.

03:54 So because they didn't have the strong conception of a life after death, of a soul that continues

04:02 on past the past the death of the physical body, this affected how they thought and how

04:10 they behaved in the life that they had in the time that they were given. And it's a

04:18 lesson for us that whenever you feel that all you have is the earthly life, is this

04:28 life is, is this number of years until, you know, until we all taste death, there will be suffering, there will be suffering when we feel so constrained when we feel like this

04:43 life is all that we have. And of course, in our Islamic conception, we believe like the

04:52 pre Islamic Arabs believed that, yes, this life will pass, of course. But we have this fundamental life changing difference, this shift that the message of the Prophet, alayhis

05:07 salam brought, which is this conception of life after death. And so much is predicated

05:15 upon our believing in that and in our having a strong conception in our mind, that life

05:24 after death is a real thing. And once we recognize and believe in the existence of the world

05:33 to come, which of course we all do, then there's less of a need to despair, right? Because

05:42 then we recognize that the life that we have here, as important as it is as real as it

05:49 is, and it feels it's just a part of our overall life, right? That our soul goes on that we

05:59 pass, yes, but we pass on to another phase of existence. And so we don't have to feel

06:07 this constraint, like everything has to be fit into these 70, 80 years, because after

06:15 this we will cease to exist. And you see reference over and over again, in the Quran of God talking

06:24 about the Arabs as people who prefer this life, who have such a lust for this life,

06:38 right? There's verses over and over about that, and people who don't believe in the next life. And God, you know, confirms for us that no, there's life after death, and

06:49 that the life that comes after death is better than this life. And it's everlasting, right? The thing that they were craving, it doesn't, it can't be confined here, right? Everlastingness

07:04 does exist, right? But it's beyond the material conception of this life. It's far beyond what

07:14 we can see and feel and touch. And this is an important reminder for us, I think, because

07:25 even though all of us as Muslims, we have a strong conception of the afterlife, it's

07:31 still the case that we can think and act as if this life is all that we have. And I think

07:41 that's because at the root of it, that's a very human way of viewing things, right? As humans, we have a very, we're very attached to what's in front of us, right? And God has

07:54 made it so that we can be in the world in a successful way and thrive in the world.

08:02 And so what we make of this life feels very real for us. But sometimes we can operate

08:12 almost as if we believe that this life is all that we have, right? That after our, that

08:19 when we pass, there's nothing after it. And I think you will find for yourself, as I have

08:28 found for myself, that it is often when we feel our most frustrated about our life circumstances,

08:40 about what's before us, about what we want to achieve in life. It's often in those moments

08:49 that really we're conceiving of life as if this is all that it is, as if everything is

08:56 riding on this opportunity or this job or this school. Oftentimes the source of our

09:06 despair as human beings is this sense of constraint that our time is so limited. And of course

09:16 there's truth to that. And of course, Allah wants us to use our time here wisely and to

09:24 be the best people that we can be and to have ihsan in what we do. We know that to be true.

09:32 But he also informed us about life after death. And we have that as something to kind of balance

09:41 us when we get into moments of extreme focus on the things of this life. When we get to

09:51 moments of intense anxiety about what course or what direction our life is taking and what

10:01 opportunities that we feel we have to seize and to take advantage of. And we have this

10:09 conception of life after death, of the fact that this is not all there is. And in the

10:19 balance of eternality, in the balance of never-ending life, how much does this matter? Do I need

10:30 to feel this level of anxiety or hopelessness or stress? And again, it shouldn't make us

10:39 lazy but it's just a balance when we get in those moments where we're operating almost as if we feel this life is all we have and that we need to make our mark and we need

10:52 to make these moves. And if we don't, then nothing matters, then our life doesn't matter.

11:01 And so this is the message that I want to remind myself and you of, which is that when

11:10 we get in those moments of anxiety and stress, it's so important for us to step back and

11:17 ask ourselves, are we thinking as people who believe that this life is just a part of a

11:27 much longer life? Or are we operating as people who believe that this is it and we need to

11:36 get as much out of it as we can before we pass? So may Allah bless you and inshallah

11:48 I hope everyone watching, including myself, reaches Ramadan and is able to benefit from it even more than we have previously.

12:00 Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.

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