were left incomplete. All their efforts for the world were in vain. Their heirs have distributed their wealth but have forgotten who gave it to them!

After imagining this, think about the conditions of their graves as to how their bodies would have been decomposed. Alas! How their beautiful faces will have been distorted. When they smiled, their faces would look beautiful and radiant. But alas! Now their beautiful sparkling teeth will have fallen out and their mouths filled with pus. Their big, attractive eyes will have swollen and flown down their cheeks. Their silk-like hair will have fallen and scattered around the grave. Insects would have entered their noses. Insects would be eating their petal-like thin and delicate lips. The tongues of small innocent children, who could lighten the darkest of days, will be infested with insects. The muscular and well-built bodies of young men will have become mixed with the dirt. All their joints will have been separated.

After having these thoughts, remember that this will also happen to me very soon. I will feel the agonies of death. My friends and relatives will gather and my mother will be crying out, ‘My beloved, my beloved’. My father will be calling out, ‘My son, my son’. Sisters will be crying, ‘My brother, my brother.’ My well-wishers will be sobbing and sighing. In this state of grief and sadness, my soul will be seized. Somebody will step forward and close my eyes and cover me with a piece of cloth.

Our friends and family will begin weeping and wailing. Then a Ghassaal (person who bathes the deceased) will be called and I will be placed on a platform and bathed, then wrapped in a shroud. Alas! With tears and screams, my funeral will leave the house where I spent my entire life. Those who love me will pick my body and take it towards the graveyard after offering my funeral Salah. Then I will be placed into the grave and my loved ones will put soil over me. Alas, they will leave after putting me all alone in the darkness of the grave. No one will stay there to console me. Then my body will begin to decompose. Worms will start to eat me. I do not know whether these worms will eat my right or left eye first. Whether they will eat my tongue first or my lips. The worms will crawl freely all over my body. They will enter my nose, eyes and ears.