Allah, exalted be He, also says, “When their appointed term arrives, they can neither delay it by an hour nor bring it forward.” Once a person’s time is up, he cannot postpone it even for a single minute, nor can he hasten it; his lifespan is a fixed, numbered portion that will neither advance nor retreat. Why, then, do you allow your hopes to stretch so far?

A human being does not know when he will die, nor in what land death will overtake him. A trustworthy brother of mine once related that he was traveling to the Hajj on camelback. With the caravan was a man accompanied by his ailing mother. Late one night he lagged behind the group while tending to her. The others set out and continued on their way, while he remained with his mother. At dawn he followed after them but could not catch up and, being near Makkah, no longer knew which route they had taken.

He recounts: The man took a path winding between the mountains until he suddenly came upon a goat-hair tent that sheltered only a few people. He asked them, “Which way leads to Najd?” They answered, “You are far off the road, but make your camel kneel and rest awhile; we will guide you.” So he dismounted, made the camel kneel, and helped his mother down. No sooner had she lain upon that patch of ground than Allah took her soul. Think of it: she traveled all the way from al-Qassim to Makkah with the pilgrims, and Allah decreed that her son would lose his way so that he would stop in that very spot, where she would die. None but Allah knows such matters.

The same applies to time itself. How often have we heard of people who, because they were a little late, were caught in an accident and died—yet had they left slightly earlier, they would have been safe? All of this is because Allah the Exalted has set every affair within a fixed term. A person, therefore, must take heed, renounce protracted hopes, and work for the Hereafter as though death were near, so that he will be ready when it comes.