Why is Death a Blessing for Human Beings?

 

It discharges us from the hardships of life, which gradually become harder through old age. It also opens the gates to reunion with many of our friends who died before us.

• It releases us from worldly life that is a turbulent, suffocating, narrow dungeon of space, and admits us into the wide circle of the Eternal Beloved One’s mercy. As a result, we enjoy a pleasant and everlasting life free from suffering.
• Old age and other unbearable conditions are ended through death. Both the elderly and their families benefit from this. For example, if your elderly parents and grandparents were living in poverty and hardship, would you not consider their deaths to be blessings? The autumnal deaths of insects is a mercy for them, for otherwise they would have to endure winter’s harshness and severity and be deprived of their lovers: lovely flowers.
• Sleep brings repose and relief, as well as mercy especially for the sick and afflicted. Death, sleep’s brother, is a blessing and mercy particularly for those afflicted with misfortunes that might make them suicidal. As for the misguided, death and life are a torment within torment, and pain after pain.
• Just as death is a blessing for a believer, the grave is the door to illuminated worlds. This world, despite its glitter, is like a dungeon in comparison with the Hereafter. To be transferred from the dungeon of this world to the gardens of Paradise, to pass from the troublesome turmoil of bodily life to the world of rest and the realm where spirits soar, to be free of the distressing noise of creatures and go to the Presence of the Most Merciful—all of this is a journey, indeed, a happiness, to be desired most earnestly.
• The All-Merciful One explains in His Scriptures, especially the Qur’an, the true nature of the world and the life therein, and warns us that love or attachment to either one is pointless.

 

This article has been adapted from Risale- i Nur Collection.