Tuition fees, business meeting, contract with the cleaning firm, tender documents to be completed, monthly furniture payment, electricity bill, phone bill, the changes in the blueprint the architect needs to be told of, the final day of the insurance policy, shopping.
How many things there are which we say we must “definitely not forget” during the course of the day! You might have made a note or placed a reminder somewhere so as not to forget about any of them. At times, even the thought of forgetting is worrying ...
Yet what would you do if we told you that you had forgotten things which are incomparably more important than any of these?
One day you came into the world ... First you had your school days ... Then adulthood ... You had a job, friends and family ... responsibilities ... As you think about these, do you also consider fundamentally far more important matters? ‘What am I living for? ... Where is my life going? ... How well do I know my Creator, Allah? ... Am I fulfilling my responsibilities towards Him? ...’ What is more, do you always bear these questions and the answers to them in mind?
Man is forgetful. Unless he uses his will, he will turn away from these important questions, which he really should be concentrating on. What we are referring to here, of course, is not the ordinary kind of forgetting which happens to us in our daily lives. It is rather the indifference, which emerges as the result of a person’s failing to think about, give his attention to or else ignoring the truth, despite being well aware of it.
The most important subject which a person may forget is that everything has a Creator and he is responsible to Him. Allah reveals this responsibility in the Qur’an:
I only created jinn and man to worship Me. (Surat adh-Dhariyat, 56)
Indeed, man’s most important responsibility is to worship Allah in the appropriate manner. Most people think they can avoid this fact by forgetting about it. Forgetting, however, does not absolve a person of his responsibilities. Sooner or later, a person will taste death, appear before our Lord to render account and, as a result, live for eternity in either heaven or hell.
NEVER FORGET! THE ONLY DEITY IS ALLAH!
The existence of a flawless order in the universe is an undeniable fact. Each of the 300 million or so galaxies contains some 300 million stars, and each is in perfect equilibrium. Allah created this order and He maintains it every moment.
Allah created the world we live on with the most suitable conditions for life. The distance of the Earth from the Sun, the level of oxygen in the atmosphere, the strength of the force of gravity and hundreds of other sensitive balances essential for living things were regulated and arranged by Allah. He reveals this truth in a verse of the Qur’an:
He makes night merge into day and day merge into night, and He has made the sun and moon subservient, each one running until a specified time. That is Allah, your Lord. The Kingdom is His. Those you call on besides Him have no power over even the smallest speck. (Surah Fatir, 13)
Everything on the face of the Earth stands in need of Allah. Someone you regard as very important or possessed of great power, whom you magnify in your eyes, actually possesses not the slightest power of his own. That being the case, fearing or respecting a human being in the way one should fear Allah, or loving another human being in the way one should love Allah, constitutes the terrible sin of ascribing partners to Him:
Some people set up equals to Allah, loving them as they should love Allah. But those who believe have greater love for Allah. If only you could see those who do wrong at the time when they see the punishment, and that truly all strength belongs to Allah, and that Allah is severe in punishment. (Surat al-Baqara, 165)
A person who grasps this truth understands that no entity apart from Allah needs to be feared. He knows that there is nobody worthy of being feared, needed or submitted to, apart from Allah. He will try to earn the good pleasure of Allah.
Allah is very close to all human beings, and encompasses all. He is with you as you watch this film. He sees you and knows what you are thinking. It is revealed in the Qur’an that nothing can be hidden from Him:
You do not engage in any matter or recite any of the Qur'an or do any action without Our witnessing you while you are occupied with it. Not even the smallest speck eludes your Lord, either on earth or in heaven. Nor is there anything smaller than that, or larger, which is not in a Clear Book. (Surah Yunus, 61)
In the life of this world, Allah grants people a life long enough to learn from the many reminders He offers them. Essentially, there are many things that happen to a person in the course of his life that are to be regarded as reminders. For example, deaths being reported in the news or those we witness ourselves should be taken as warnings. By these examples, Allah reminds us that we too may also meet our deaths at any moment.
A person can either bear all these reminders in mind and serve Allah, or may forget all this advice and cast it aside. Yet without exception everyone is rapidly heading towards the day when he will have to account to our Lord.
Allah, Who never forgets, will gather all people for reckoning.
Never forget that a reminder that you hear may be your last warning from your Lord, your last chance. Verse 19 of Surah 59 reveals:
Do not be like those who forgot Allah so He made them forget themselves. Such people are the deviators. (Surat al-Hasr, 19)
If you do not wish to suffer the eternal torment, remember that the only way to be saved from punishment is to repent and to become a true servant of Allah.
