Islam As It Is
man, know theyself!
~ 33 ~
or we grow fruit. We grow weeds or we grow
flowers. Whatever we do, the period of our
preparation of this crop lasts until the day we die.
The day of our death is harvest day. That is the day
that we shall reap as we have sown. When our eyes
close on this world, they will open on the after-life
and there, before our eyes, will be the crop which
we have been cultivating (or neglecting) all our
lives.
It is worth remembering that the person who does
the farming is the one who does the harvesting, and
that he will reap only the crop that he has sown. In
the after-world, too, everyone will reap the harvest
he had prepared for himself while he was still in the
world of the living. Every farmer knows full well
that he will take to the granary only as much grain
as he has grown, and that the crop can never be
other than what he had sowed.
In the afterworld, man’s reward or punishment will
be in direct proportion to the goodness or evil of his
actions, to the goodness or evil of his intentions,
and to the earnestness with which he courts good
and shuns evil. Death puts a full stop to the period
