The Inevitability of Demise

In our lives we have important meetings and appointments. Generally these meetings are scheduled in advance and we have the ability to change them if needed. However our most important meeting in this life happens to be the one we have no control over: our meeting with the Angel of Death. This meeting has an unknown time and unknown location; we are unable to postpone or change the appointed time. Therefore, we must always be prepared for this meeting. This preparation, according to the Qur’an and Sunnah, entails remembering death abundantly, visiting the graveyards to actualize the reality of death, and being in a recurrent state of tawbah, or repentance, so that we may present to our meeting with a clean slate.