Annemarie Schimmel’s Tombstone

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This is Annemarie Schimmel’s tombstone, one of the most eminent western scholars of Islam. The phrase on her tombstone is what Prophet Muhammad said: “People are asleep. When they die, they awaken.”

What Mohammad Ali Shomali analogized is very interesting. When we die, we wake and never go to sleep again. But then it is too late. We are like someone who wakes up when the train has gone, when the airplane has flown.

At that time, there is no use or benefit in going to the airport because, although we are now awake, we have already missed the flight. All we can do is to blame ourselves and be regretful. We might say that we will catch the next flight but unfortunately there are no more flights. It is the end of the world, that was the last flight and we missed it because we were asleep.

So, let us be awake. If we become conscious only when we die, we cannot do anything as there is no opportunity to come back. Therefore we actually will not sleep when we die.