Change of Address

One of the greatest signs of Allah’s lordliness is to watch his rahmah unfold upon his unassuming slave, most notably in how the man welcomes death. 

All his life this man lives simply. He is no scholar. He is no philosopher. He can barely articulate his thoughts.

Every time he disagrees with someone around him, he finds himself corrected by a dozen other voices. Yet, he gifts the last word to anyone who is in conversation with him. He does this with kindness, even gratitude. 

Every time. So much so that you might think him a nobody. What you may miss is that he is very good at being that.

Here now, in his final moments, so efficient is his economy with words, so powerful his choice in them, so frequent his recitation of the only word that matters, and so thorough his mending of fences with all his kin, that a lifetime of scholarship and pontification may be sacrificed for the nūr that illuminates his face. 

Much intellect shines now through the humor in his eyes. His eagerness to meet his Lord is tangible, electric, in the air, betrayed only by his brow dancing ever so slightly in response to an oft raised index finger.

If we could see a man’s true worth as he dies
we can begin to make sense of his life
because what he has truly accomplished
is now before our eyes

What a man!