For What Reason Must We Frown Upon Death

Has the Angel of Death been emotionally hardened or compassionate to you? I know many of us would concur defiantly to the former, but could it not be that we may have implicated it for crimes it has not committed, or seriously, the lives it has not taken? God commands and it obeys, so blaming the Angel of Death may sound hypocritical and that of a sanctimonious talk! It works just like a recharged credit; the moment your time is due it does not matter which protocol list your name appears on, it would finish you, and period!

Now, I do not mean how we develop wrinkles when news unfolds that we have lost a parliamentarian seat. And I am not also postulating that the facial expression of displeasure that changes our looks especially when we see our enemy’s asset soaring higher than an eagle. All these things I have mentioned, if you have succeeded in eating the bitter pie; your enemy is far gone and that papal seat too had been taken. Still and all, we can revoke this, our attitude; it stenches! That is what is expected to be frowned upon and not the five letter words “Death”. Prophets were the only people on this earth the Angel of Death takes permission from them before taking their soul. Why, because their cup is over flowing with good deeds. The same thing could not be said about us because living a zero tolerance life of sin has become an uphill task.

The more the life of the God fearing ones and those happily scoundrels are being taken instantaneously by Allah, it should daringly make us weep profusely. So beautiful, we have named it the world of yesterday and it belongs to the "I care less people". Anyway, ourselves analogous to the aforementioned individuals could never suggest that we are superior to any of them, may be our time is not yet due! The only forwardness our natural instinct keeps mocking us with is that our time is just tomorrow, meanwhile tomorrow to us is not tomorrow but the future; in say 100 years’ time, it sounds awkward though! It means that I could also die tomorrow, and so do you or? That is why we wish we could see this instinct and give it a resounding slap! Keep quiet, we would age [110] like ‘Nuumo Kofi' in the village before we will be gone, a vacuous lamentation. That is another form of cowering; the fact is that we have only an atom of good deed on our records which was tailored not for God’s sake but actually for people to call us ‘honourable' or ‘big-man’.

Even though we know for sure that we do frown upon death our actions say that we have merged with profligacy to mock death! On Fridays, we join all social corners to abuse our souls and the obvious Books. Any place that God Almighty is being disobeyed, we are seen there. After death there is a sound sleep, as ignorantly as those who defy Allah’s dictum deem, and they end up in the shackles of hell fire. We partake in all sinful acts to the ebb of glorying about the number of rides we may have diligently had with ladies!

So what has busied us from thinking about death? Well, it is glaringly the prodigious wordily pleasures; wealth, slackness of trade which we fear, family and the earthly sovereignty we are enjoying! No matter what it takes to get rich, we must consider a way out to amass wealth. Our actions have devoured the properties of the orphans while being rich [our family]! At night, we laugh together and they [orphans] cry out loud for food on the streets of Accra. It even boils down to the national cake being enjoy by the selected few and the ordinary cocoa growing farmer’s child whose father’s effort got the educational scholarship is denied the sponsorship package, but it would be given to an affluent child to continue sailing farther, and still we frown upon death! How could justice be served if we continuing frowning upon death and not our ill-attitude? It has already written our names with red ink but has done it so patiently because there is always the chance for man to rehabilitate.

Have we ever heard God complaining about our lifestyle after the revelation of the obvious Books? His silence would be broken the moment death overtakes us, so what are we waiting for? The old Books have always been empathetic in reorienting our conscience steadily with this transient life that the successful ones among us are those who remind themselves about death and followed it by the exhibition of valour while they are breathing. The dead have had theirs, it is left with you and me! The only power we have irrespective of our age is the moment I am gossiping it to myself and you are eavesdropping, but tomorrow belongs to the Creator, so let us invest in our today!

Did not our elders say that if the young palm tree wants to stay alive, it grows near the odum tree? The odum tree in this context is the heart-breaking obituaries we see which display the age of people we may be older than or aged more than us; this must get us pondering, for it is only a bad attitude that would frown upon death but a good one smiles with death because it is the medium of transition that would get him closer to Paradise and Allah.

Nonetheless, mankind behaves as if he has the gut to evade death! The Almighty has said that “Wherever you shall be, death would surely overtake you even if in a lofty construction” [Qur'an 4:78]. Indeed, we should know that every soul shall have a taste of death, that is why henceforth we have to premeditate our focus to a position that would make us take advantage of all acts of goodness in the very least chance we may get. If our name is mentioned we must be seen in the mood of godliness; prayerful, service to humanity, God consciousness and avoid dissipating the public purse.

Let me be a bit humorous; imaging yourself being God Almighty, if somebody with a typical unadulterated character of yours appears on the day of judgement would you award him with Paradise or hell-fire? Just keep whatever the answer is within you, I am very sure it would always reverberate in your ears. That is your own judgement, I mean.

© Abdur Rahman Odoi Anum Pobee
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