alert, astute, resolute, and prudent. That is the purport of his ﷺ words: “When you wake up in the morning, do not expect to reach the evening; and when you reach the evening, do not expect to see the morning.”

He ﷺ also said: “Take from your health for your illness, and from your life for your death.” A healthy person is open-hearted, content, clear-minded, and enjoys ample time and vigor; yet how many people squander these gifts because they imagine their health will stay with them and their days will be long. In the end, they let that health slip away.

Ibn ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him—used to repeat: “Take from your health for your illness.” Sickness constricts the soul, exhausts the body, and makes the world feel narrow; a sick person cannot do what he was able to do when healthy. Therefore let him set something aside from his health for his illness, and from his life for his death. Weigh up the span between your life and your death: which is longer? Clearly, earthly life is negligible next to the stretch of death. How long has the Messenger ﷺ been in his grave? How long those before him? Their lifetimes are minute compared with the time they have spent dead—so what, then, of the Hereafter?

Hence a person should devote part of his life—so long as Allah grants him breath—to what will benefit him after death, when he can no longer act. The Prophet ﷺ said: “When a human being dies, all his deeds come to an end except three: a continuous charity, knowledge from which people still benefit, or a virtuous child who prays for him.” So take from your life for your death.