Afew days ago, I had the opportunity to visit a large cemetery in which the inhabitants of several surrounding villages bury their deceased. As I walked through it, I began to read the inscriptions on some of the gravestones. On several of them, the date of death showed that forty or fifty years had already passed. I found myself reflecting that these people have been lying beneath the earth for almost half a century.
My eye fell upon one grave whose inscription stated that it was the resting place of a certain Major. Next to it was the grave of his wife, and immediately beside that, the grave of their son, who had himself served as an officer. On further inquiry I discovered that there were many such graves in this cemetery where several members of the same household or family were buried side by side. On some stones the word “Haji” appeared, on others “Raja,” and on others various worldly titles and offices—yet all of them now lie alike beneath the soil.
It was a powerful reminder that whether a person is a king or a beggar, fair-skinned or dark, male or female, no matter how accomplished and expert in their profession, death is the great leveller that comes to all. If we look around us, we will find cemeteries everywhere in which people of every kind are buried together.
The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) himself used to visit the graves. He said that one should visit graves, for they remind one of death. In a narration of Tirmidhi it is related that when Uthman bin Affan (RA) would stand at a grave, he would weep until his beard became wet. Someone asked him: “You do not weep when Paradise and Hell are mentioned, yet when you see a grave, you weep?” He replied that the Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: “The grave is the first stage of the Hereafter; if a person is saved at this stage, what follows will be easier for him, but if he does not find salvation here, then the stages that come after it are even more severe.” He then added: “The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: I have never seen anything more terrifying than the grave.”
Cemeteries impress upon us that every moment of life is precious: it should be lived in full awareness that this world is a test, and that one must prepare for death. They remind us of Allah and of our own mortality, of the fact that life is transient and that, sooner or later, we too must face death.