The day when YOUR LORD comes

5. He will say, "I wish I had sent forth (some good) for my life."

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 يَقُولُ يَا لَيْتَنِي قَدَّمْتُ لِحَيَاتِي 

He will say, "I wish I had sent forth (some good) for my life."

He will wish so much that he had done something of good to help him for his life. But what life is he speaking of? This worldly life we are living now? No, by Allah, because at the time a person says "I wish I had sent forth (some good) for my life," the life of this world would have finished and gone. This life is not the true, actual life. 

Similar to this is a ḥadīth recorded in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī in which the prophet ( صلّى الله عليه وسلّم ) said:

» . اللَّهُمَّ لا عَيْشَ إِلاَّ عَيْشُ الآخِرَهْ فَاغْفِرْ لِلأَنسَْصَارِ وَالْمُهَاجِرَهْ «

Oh Allah, there is no life except the life of the hereafter, so forgive the Anṣār and those who migrated.

This life, in essence, is nothing but worry and suffering. Every state of safety and security will eventually be followed by distress. Good health is eventually followed by sickness, and every unified community eventually tastes disunity and division in this life.

Just look to the past. Where are our fathers? Where are our brothers, our children, our wives? Is this the extent of this life? There is a common line of poetry by some of the wiser poets which states, "Life is not truly enjoyed when it is constantly disturbed by the distress of death and old age."

Every individual realizes that the end result of (the enjoyment of) his life is either death or old age (and then death). We all know people who, once in their prime youth, have had their lives prolonged so much so that they return back to a state of feebleness, old age and senility. Others then look at him, feeling sorry for him due to his pitiful, suffering state. Even if they have money and family as support, they are often miserable and suffering. Everyone will either die (before this happens) or be returned to this weak, frail state of old age. Is this the extent of this life? 

The essence of this life when compared to the next is just as Allah ( عزّ وجلّ ) clearly says:

 وَإِ الدَّارَ الآخِرَةَ لَهِيَ الْحَيَوَا لَوْ كَانسَُوا يَعْلَمُو 

And the home of the hereafter – that is the real life indeed if they only knew.

The hereafter is the true, complete life. This is why a person in this verse of Sūrah al-Fajr will say, 

"I wish I had sent forth (some good) for my life." 

He will wish for this, but as Allah says in the previous verse but how will the remembrance help him then?