Tradition

إِعْمَلْ لِدُنْياكَ كَأَنَّكَ تَعِيشُ أَبَداً وَ إِعْمَلْ لاِخِرَتِكَ كَأَنَّك تَمُوتُ غَدَاً

Imam al-Rida’ (‘a) is narrated to have said: “Work towards the life of this world as if you will live forever and work towards the next as if you will die tomorrow.”1

Brief Commentary

The aforementioned tradition details how Islam views our material and spiritual lives both in this world and the next. A Muslim should be living his life in this world in such a firm and established way that it seems as if he is going to live in this world forever. This statement completely destroys the ideology of false asceticism which some people have tried to attribute to Islam.

Similarly, when it comes to spiritual issues and our level of preparedness, it is necessary to be so exact and detailed that if we were to die tomorrow, we would not have any defiencies or regrets. This means that we would have washed ourselves from any mistakes with a true repentance and we would have paid back in full anything we owed to the people in terms of their rights. If we live in such a way, then it will be possible for us to die tomorrow in a way where we are left without any regrets and sorrows over what we should have done.

• 1. Wasa’il al-Shi’ah (according to the section Aqwal al-A’immah, vol. 2, p. 277), Man La Yahdharuh Al-Faqih, vol. 3, p. 156.