The well-known American evangelist Billy Graham (b.1918) narrates one of his life’s experiences. Once he received an urgent message from an American statesman who wanted to meet him at the earliest. On receiving this message, Billy Graham cancelled his appointments and immediately set out to meet this man. When he arrived at the statesman’s palatial home, he was immediately taken to a room, where he and the statesman sat on chairs facing one another. Then, in a serious tone, the statesman said to Billy Graham:
You see, I am an old man. Life has lost all meaning. I am ready to take a fateful leap into the unknown. Young man, can you give me a ray of hope?
(The Secret of Happiness, Billy Graham, 1955)
This is not only the story of a statesman; rather it is the story of every man and woman. Every person, consciously or unconsciously, is obsessed with this thought. Man’s average life expectancy is about 70 years. This is why every person, sometime or the other, thinks: What will be my life after seventy years? What will happen to me after death? What will happen to me when I leave this world and go to another unknown world?
Man should strive to his utmost to prepare himself for the next world, so that in the Hereafter he can achieve that which he could not in the present world.
On the death of his son, these same thoughts were expressed by the well-known singer Jagjit Singh (1941-2011) in these words: Chitthi na koi sandesh, jane wo kaun sa desh jahan tum chale gaye. (You left no letter and no message. No one knows the world to which you have gone.) These lines do not only represent the feelings of a father at the death of his son, rather it is the case of every human being—if he is alive, then this is his feeling about himself and if he has died then these are the feelings of the relatives whom he has left behind.
Almost all thinkers of history were obsessed with trying to explain this phenomenon. Everyone tried to discover the answer to this question.
However, every answer failed to provide an explanation. In 1935 Alexis Carrel wrote a book Man, The Unknown. From another perspective the theme of this book was: Destination, The Unknown. Till today this destination has remained unknown and undiscovered.
Man’s life is like an iceberg. Only a small tip of his life lies in the present world; the rest of it lies in the world Hereafter.
Having spent my entire life in trying to find an answer to this question led me to the discovery that the only rational answer has been given in the Quran. According to the Quranic explanation, man was born as an eternal creature. But, his life was divided into two parts: the pre-death period and the post-death period. Man’s life is like an iceberg. Only a small tip of his life lies in the present world; the rest of it lies in the world Hereafter. Man should strive to his utmost to prepare himself for the next world, so that in the Hereafter he can achieve that which he could not in the present world.
Find a detailed explanation of this discovery in ‘Islam Rediscovered’, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, published 2001.
