Mercy Wider Than Everything
🎧 Listen to this chapter (3 min)
al-Manbiji ends where every grieving heart needs to end. With the mercy of Allah. He says, My mercy encompasses all things.
He reminds the reader who has lost someone who was not perfect, who had sins, and died without the family knowing if they had repented. Whoever dies upon tawhid, upon the oneness of Allah, will not be in the Fire forever, no matter what they did.
Abu Dharr came to the Prophet, who said, no servant says there is no god but Allah and dies upon that, except that he enters Paradise. Abu Dharr asked, even if he committed grave sins? He said, even then. He asked again, and again, and the answer did not change.
Then the last chapter. Letting go of this world. Allah says, the enjoyment of this world is little, and the next is better for one who is mindful. Ibn Umar said, the Prophet took me by the shoulder and said, be in this world as if you were a stranger, or a traveller passing through.
A stranger does not make a foreign land his home. He does not get too attached. He knows he is going home.
Once the Prophet walked through the market and picked up a small dead goat with tiny ears. He asked, who would like to buy this for a dirham? They said, we would not take it for nothing. Even alive it was flawed. He said, by Allah, this world is less in the sight of Allah than this is to you.
So do not grieve beyond measure for what this world took from you. And do not forget what the next world is keeping for you. Those you lost went home before you. And the door is still open. To Allah we belong, and to Him, all of us, are returning.
