By Shaykh Anisul Haque
3 January 2025

﷽

As we enter 2025, many of us have likely spent the past week in contemplation, reviewing the year gone by and setting resolutions for the months ahead. Some dream of buying a house, others of marriage, weight loss, or career advancement. Yet how often do we find ourselves caught in this perpetual cycle – setting grand plans only to see them fade, pushing our goals to Ramadan, then to Hajj, and so on, while remaining fundamentally unchanged?

O mankind,
indeed, the promise of Allah is truth,
so let not the worldly life delude you
and be not deceived about Allah by the Deceiver.

[Qur’an, 35:5]

One of the greatest diseases of the heart that makes a person forget about the afterlife is a concept known as طول الأمد (tool al-amad). It’s when someone tells themselves, “Yes, I’ve got a long time ahead of me”, and then begins making plan after plan, envisioning their path for the next 50 years – though for many, half of these plans never materialise.

To illustrate this, let me share an incident from one of the cities in the UK. There was a very unique looking house, and the brothers who showed it to me explained that it was built from scratch. The owner had sold alcohol and used this money to build this house for his family. By the decree of Allah on the very day he moved in while walking up the stairs of his new home, the man collapsed and died on the spot – may Allah have mercy on him and forgive his shortcomings.

I mention this incident because many of us may have similar plans – ensuring we buy a nice big house, furnishing it with the best furniture, the best sofas and so on. We make these grand plans, but what slips from our minds is that we are not in this world forever.

As the prominent Muslim scholar and ascetic Fudayl ibn Iyad (d. 187 AH/803 CE) said:

Indeed, from sadness and misery is having this concept of high and long-term aspirations. And indeed from the blessings and happiness is to have short-term aspirations

The very word we use for this temporal world – dunya – carries deep significance, derived from danaa meaning something of the lowest nature. Yet paradoxically, we often treat it as ulyaa – the highest of matters.

Our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ perfectly illustrated its transient nature when he said to Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud:

What is the world to me? What am I to the world? Verily, the parable of myself and this world is that of a rider who seeks shade under a tree, then moves on and leaves it behind.

Imam Ghazali provides us with a powerful parable that captures our position in the dunya: a man fleeing from a lion finds himself hanging in a well, gripping a rope being gnawed by a black and white mouse, with a snake waiting below. Yet, despite this perilous position, he becomes distracted by some honey within reach. The lion represents death looming above, the snake our awaiting grave, the mice the days and nights eating away at the rope keeping us alive, and the honey the fleeting pleasures that make us forget our reality.

This world is دار البلاء لا دار البقاء  (dar al-balaa la dar al-baqaa) – a place of trial, not permanence. It’s our examination hall, where our deeds form the answers on our test paper. The Prophet ﷺ warned us about wahn – the love of this world and hatred of death – in a well-known hadith where he predicted nations would gather against us like people around a feast, not due to small numbers but because of our worldly attachments.

To remedy this spiritual ailment, we must first remember death regularly. Our Prophet ﷺ advised:

Remember more often the destroyer of pleasures – death.

When was the last time we contemplated the moment the angel of death will come to us? When did we last visit a graveyard to remind ourselves of our final destination?

Secondly, we should study the lives of those who practised zuhd (asceticism), like Umar bin Abdul Aziz, who, as Caliph, owned just one pair of clothes despite commanding vast resources. He said, “I did not leave anything from this dunya except that Allah put something in my heart far better than it.”

One last point, which is particularly important for our younger brothers and sisters, is to choose the right friend circle and take the right role models. By Allah, much of the dunya we are chasing is because we feel we need to live a standard of life similar to those around us. It is because we are looking at people on social media living lavish lives and we want a bit of what they have. Our Prophet ﷺ told us,

A man is on the path of his friend.

If your friend circle is all fixated around the dunya, if all they talk about is how they can make money, what cars they want to hire for their cousin’s wedding, and what clothes they want to wear for Eid, this will make us instantly think the same way. So we must choose our friends wisely.

Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) beautifully expressed:

Set out with the world at your back and the Hereafter at your front. Each of them both has their children. Be children of the Hereafter and not children of the world, for today is for action and not reckoning, while tomorrow is for reckoning and not action.

Let us enter this new year with renewed awareness of the temporary nature of this life and strive to be among those who understand that our true home lies not in the fleeting pleasures of this world, but in the eternal abode that awaits us.

Ameen.

---

Help us complete our Phase 3 expansion for the new prayer halls!