SCARED AND SPOOKED? - THE CATERPILLAR

In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

I tried to get some sleep after Fajr but woke up at my wife’s frightened cries😱 .

She pointed to a place in the bed where there was what appeared a caterpillar We were newly married and our bed was literally a bed of roses and decorated with a myriad of flowers 💐. A caterpillar may have sneaked into it somehow!

I got rid of it and my wife told me later it reminded her of the grave🪦! Subhanallah, I was impressed by her line of thinking 😮.

The Prophet ﷺ once prayed over someone buried who had died. After finishing he said:

إِنَّ هَذِهِ الْقُبُورَ مَمْلُوءَةٌ ظُلْمَةً عَلَى أَهْلِهَا وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ يُنَوِّرُهَا لَهُمْ بِصَلاَتِي عَلَيْهِمْ

Verily, these graves are full of darkness ⚫ for their dwellers. Verily, the Mighty and Glorious Allah illuminates them 🔦 for their occupants by reason of my prayer over them. (Muslim 956)

When ‘Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him, would stop at a grave he would cry 😢until his beard was soaked (in tears). It was said to him: 'The Paradise and the Fire were mentioned and you did not cry, yet you cry because of this?’ So he said: 'Indeed the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

إِنَّ الْقَبْرَ أَوَّلُ مَنَازِلِ الآخِرَةِ فَإِنْ نَجَا مِنْهُ فَمَا بَعْدَهُ أَيْسَرُ مِنْهُ وَإِنْ لَمْ يَنْجُ مِنْهُ فَمَا بَعْدَهُ أَشَدُّ مِنْهُ

“Indeed the grave is the first of the stages 🛫 of the afterlife. So if one is saved from it, then what comes after it is easier ⛲ than it. And if one is not saved from it, then what comes after it is severer 🔥 than it.”

And the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

مَا رَأَيْتُ مَنْظَرًا قَطُّ إِلاَّ وَالْقَبْرُ أَفْظَعُ مِنْهُ

“I have not seen any sight except that the grave is more horrible ⚫than it.” (Tirmizi, 2308, Hasan - Darussalam)

Umar Ibn Abdul-Aziz, may God rest his soul, told some of his companions: “I have spent the night sleeplessly thinking of the grave and its habitant, if you saw the dead person 🪦three days after being buried you would hate being near it after your long lived intimacy. You would see a home of vermin, puss, worms instead of good shape, perfumed breath and clean garments”. [http://iswy.co/e4d7k]

Dear brothers and sisters, prepare for the grave. One day you and I will be in it. So will you not reason?

And praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.