"Die Before You Die"

This is my khutba delivered in Bellingham on January 12, 2007. The title is based on a hadith of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him.


• As we are still in the first two weeks of the new year, and as students are coming back to University, going back to school, I thought it would be important to reflect upon one of the signs of the day of judgement; the Prophet is reported to have said that as you get closer to the Day, time will seem to get faster and faster

• And if I reflect upon this saying, it only seems like last week that 2006 was beginning and 2005 was ending, and we are already in 2007; That only last week Ramadan was beginning and not only is Eid Al-Fitr is gone, but so is Hajj and Eid Al-Adha;
• And this not an uncommon feeling in this age, as the Prophet mentioned; in fact it is not only us that are feeling this but the entire humanity; and we will continue to feel this way until the Day of Judgement is upon us; in fact, even on that day, our entire life on this earth 60, 70, 80 years will feel like “yawmun aw ba’da yawm” A day or part of a day
• So our goal in this life is not to try and do away with this feeling of speed, but rather to take advantage of the life we have in front of us: “carpe diem” or seize the day
• So as we sit here today, at the beginning of 2007, at the beginning of our semester in school, the year looks very long; 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days; but I can guarantee you that sitting here towards its end, we will wonder where the time went
• So make a commitment that you will take advantage of every day that you have; make today the beginning of the rest of your life, or at least the rest of this year
• And the way to do this is remind ourselves of the hadith our beloved messenger where he mentions: mankind is asleep and they wake up when they die; so die before you die; what this means is that after we establish ourselves on a certain path, whether it be work, family, school, or any activity, we begin to do it monotonously, not even thinking about what we are doing; like when you drive your car: most people are not even thinking about driving, but everything else in their lives
• And so we begin to live our lives monotonously doing the same things day in day out, week in week out, year in year out; not realizing that an end is coming and it is fast approaching; like a driver when he gets into an accident says “that car came out of no where, so will the Angel of Death come out of no where if you continue life in this way;
• But when you die, then reality begins to set in; in the grave, six feet under, when the two angels come and ask you the three questions: who is your lord, who is your prophet, and what is your religion? You literally wake up to the reality of the eternal hereafter; so to wake up to the reality of the hereafter in this life is to die before you die; to be ever aware that we are living in a temporary world, and every second we do things without “dieing”, so to speak, we are wasting our time away; and if we waste our time, then on the day of judgment we will be of those that ask Allah to send us back to like, just for one day, so that we could do good
• But Allah has made it very simple for us to do mundane acts with consciousness; an act that you are sleeping through can become an act of worship if and only if we begin to do it with the intention of pleasing Allah; when we begin to have intention behind what we do, then it keeps us focused on the real reality;
• So from the minute you get up in the morning till the moment you go to sleep, in fact even sleep itself, can be an act of worship that you benefit from, rather than let it go to waste by not thinking about the act you are performing
• So when you wake up, you wake up by reciting a dua: Alhamdulillahilladhee ahyaana ba’da maa amaatana wa ilayhin nushoor; Praise be to Allah who gave us life after causing us to die, and to to him is the gathering;
• When you brush your teeth, you do it because ½ of religion is cleanliness; you eat because your body has a right upon you and you start with a dua and bismillah; you do this over and over again till you go to bed, and you do that with a du’aa as well; you go to school and learn because Allah encourage us to learn and have knowledge and the Prophet said that wisdom is the property of a Muslim; if he finds it somewhere, he should take it; even the work we do, whether it be directly or indirectly related to Islam, can become a worship because the Prophet has taught us to provide for our families;
• So you see, anything and everything we do, if we choose to do so, can become an act of worship, and when we do it with a sincere intention, and even better would be to recite a dua before we do it, then we will always be aware of our real purpose in life and with the knowledge of this real purpose, we will never do things for the sake of doing them, but do them knowing that we will be rewarded in the hereafter. As Allah says: “wa maa khalaqtal jinna wa insa illa liya’budoon”

• Bros and sisters, as with anything in life, we have a choice today; the Prophet reminds us that mankind is asleep and they wake up when they die; then he says “die before you die”
• And how do we do this? One way to do this is to have a sincere intention with everything we are doing, whether it be a true act of worship or a mundane task that we have to do on a daily basis and this is what I mentioned earlier
• And another way to “die before you die” is related to having a sincere intention, but has to do with having a direction in life; someone once asked Imam Al-Shafi’i who is the worst person, and he answered “a person who give up the akhira for his dunya”; and then he was asked, who is worse than that, and he said “a person who gives up his akhira for another person’s dunya”
• so the worst person is the one that aimlessly goes about life doing what other people want him to do, and not doing things that will benefit him; a better person (but still bad) in this life is a person who has a goal that he wants to achieve but it is a goal that is only for this life and has nothing to do with the hereafter
• And the best person who has a goal of the hereafter, and he knows that with this goal, his dunya will automatically be given to him; so we as Muslims, have to decide where we are going, in this life and the hereafter; that is why even Allah asks us this question in the Qur’an:

Fa ayna tadh-haboon? So where are you going?
In huwa illa dhikrul lil ‘aalameen Verily this is a message to the world

• And the answer is also given to us, that the message of Islam is where you should be heading; it has the answers; so if we find ourselves aimlessly wandering in this life, then we should know that the answer is in the message of the Qur’an; it is the one that will uplift you in your sadness and calm you in you anxiety, and give perspective to you happiness; so hold on to it, read it, recite it, and follow it to the best of your ability
• So in conclusion, with sincere intention and with having a clear definition of where we are going in this life, can we truly live up to the hadith of the prophet of “dieing before we die” and we we realize this hadith in our life, then time will not slow down for us, but at least it will be time well spent.