what it will earn tomorrow, nor does any soul know in which land it will die” (Q 31:34).

Thus, with Allah are the keys to the unseen. Not a single leaf falls from a tree without His knowledge. Should a leaf drop in the most remote wilderness—no matter how tiny—Allah still knows of it. If He knows what falls, then—majestic and exalted is He—He surely knows every event He Himself brings into existence, for Allah is All-Knowing of everything.

The Exalted says, “No soul knows what it will earn tomorrow, nor does any soul know in which land it will die.” Picture yourself now: settled in your own homeland with no thought of travelling east or west. Yet if Allah wills that you die in another land, He will create some need that drives you there, and you will die in that very place.

A trustworthy man once recounted to me a remarkable incident. In the days when pilgrims journeyed by camel, a caravan departed Mecca after the Hajj. Along the route, the narrator’s mother fell ill, so he remained behind to care for her. The caravan moved on in the last hours of the night, while he stayed to nurse her and prepare a bed on the camel. When she had mounted, he led the animal, but he strayed into one of the valleys and lost the path. The sun rose, the heat grew intense, and he noticed a small tent belonging to some Bedouins. He turned toward them, dismounted, greeted them, and asked, “Which way is Najd?” They replied, “The road to Najd is far; there is no track near here. Come down, rest a while, and we will then point out the way.”

He says, “I made the camel kneel and helped my mother dismount, and the very moment her feet touched the ground Allah took her soul.” Glory be to Allah! She had travelled all the way from her hometown to that unknown valley only to die in the spot Allah had decreed for her death, for Allah says, “No soul knows in which land it will die.”