Knowledge hidden from man

Oh Mufadhdhal! Just consider why man has not been given the knowledge of his life span. If he knew the period of his life on the earth to be short, his whole life would have been embittered, for, knowing this, he would await the moment of his death. His condition would be like a man whose assets have all been lost or are very soon to be lost. And he might feel his poverty and neediness. How afraid he would be at the expectation of the destruction of his assets and the consequent indigence! The sorrow and chagrin he would feel at the prospect of death would be far greater than that at the prospect of the destruction of his property, for he who loses his property ever entertains the hope that he might get more in return and that provides solace to his mind. On the contrary, he who is convinced of the end of his life will be much more frustrated. In case he has a long life span to live, this confidence in his survival will give him undue confidence. He might be overwhelmed by pleasures and de baucheries under the impression that he would offer penitence in the last days of life, lingering for the present in his pleasure pursuits. This is a matter which Allah the Almighty does not want nor likes in his creatures. (He wants man to attend to Him and to not be absorbed in frivolities and novelties).

Suppose you have a servant who continues to offend you

throughout the year and hopes to be pardoned by doing you good in a day or a month. Surely you would not like him and this servant will not rank with a righteous servant who is ever ready to follow your bidding. (He will necessarily be dearer to you).

You may raise an objection to this by asking whether it does not happen that a man treads the path of disobedience and then is penitent, and his penitence is accepted. Our reply to this is that this happens only when a man is overpowered by his libido to an irresistible extent, but all the time he is not determined to be disobedient under the impression of expressing peni tence later on while indulging in passions for the moment. Allah the Almighty does forgive him out of His infinite mercy. But in the case of one who is determined to be disobedient as long as he wants, expecting forgiveness at a later stage, he is trying thereby to deceive Him Who can not be deceived, thinking of getting the most out of the pleasures of the moment while expecting to be forgiven because of his later penitence. There is this aspect of the matter, too, that persisting in a certain pattern of life of indulgence in pleasures might not allow him even the occasion for penitence, particularly in the old age when the physical body has undergone a good deal of weakness preventing him from working up to his expectations. And he who seeks pre texts in submitting his penitence, it may not be possible for him in case of a sudden death and so he may leave the world impenitent. He may be like a debtor who is competent to pay his debts but keeps delaying from time to time till death overtakes him, his assets get destroyed and his debts still stand against him. As such it is in the fitness of things that the knowledge of man’s life span is kept a secret from him so that he may expect death to come at any moment and, under that suspense, evade transgression and adopt righteous action.

You may raise another objection by saying that since his life

span is a secret from him and he is ever in suspense about his death, he commits evil deeds and unlawful acts. Our reply to this is that the planning is in accordance with the situation prevailing now. If in spite of all this, a man does not refrain from evil, it is a sign of his temperamental perversion and his hard heartedness. There is no error in the planning if a patient after being fully apprised of the benefits of certain medicines and the demerits of certain malevolent matters does not avail of this information and disregards the physician’s directions; the physician is not to be blamed but the patient who declined to follow the physician's directions.

If in spite of the suspense of his death, which he has because of his ignorance about his life span, he does not desist from transgressions, he would be steeped in evil and heinous unreasonable sins, like the case in which he does have full knowledge of his life span and survival. As such, the suspense about death in any case is better for him than his confidence in long life. If there are some people who despite their suspense about death are indolent and do not profit by advice, there are others who profit by the advice, abstain from sinfulness and act righteously. They give to the needy and the indigent charity of their precious possessions. It would not have been justice to deprive this kind of people from getting the benefit thereof (to prevent such people from having their share just because others are unable to profit by it; the state of death is therefore kept secret for people to profit by it).