14 : IN OLD AGE, ALL ROADS LEAD TO DEATH
The
Quran reveals a clear picture of the life cycle
that truly reflects the progress of your life
from birth to death. You are born as weak and
helpless and at youthful adult age you are strong, capable enough to do many things and you think your whole life is in front of you. When you
go past this mid-point of your life, you become
older at faster pace with every passing day, comparable
to the sun that dives steeply before setting.
At this stage you start showing signs of decline
in your physical and mental capacity.
Your body cells start dying, your bone becomes
thinner that tends to break, you lose teeth one
by one this time forever, you hair starts graying, your
skin wrinkles and becomes spotty, you feel weaker, pains progressively
conquer your various body parts specially at joints, frequency of
your sickness intensifies, your vision and hearing
power get poor, glammer of your face is lost, you start forgetting things and
so on. All these are generic developments as exceptions
apply to particular cases. Sometimes, you also
may try for protections from such natural developments.
For example, you may have plastic surgery to heal
wrinkles, use color to conceal graying, take steroid
or multivitamins to regain strength, you may check
up your blood to combat diabetes or cholesterol
and make no delay to have procedure if heart or
other parts go wrong etc.
Sometimes, you also reshape your cultures such
as calling yourself "80 years young"
at 80th birthday, you do not like to hear the
word "death", you prefer to say "I
am not feeling well" instead of "I am
sick" and the like. In spite of all these,
you are on irreversible journey to death which
may be little delayed (subject to God's approval)
thanks to your healthcare or prayer for long life.
But the death must come at a time appointed by
God, regardless all your attempt to live longer. Finally He sends
an incurable deadly disease like cancer, stroke
or heart attack etc. to overpower your all attempts
to survive and deal a final blow to your life.
In order to gain salvation after such unstoppable
death, you should therefore spend your lifetime
in a way recommended by God.