I was really excited about going to watch 2012. The idea of a centuries-old prediction about the end of the world and its tell-tale signs seemed liked a fantastic premise for a film. The end of the world is a strongly held belief for all of us anyways, so I couldn’t wait to see this film’s take on it—which was supposed to be based on some ancient scriptures of the Mayan civilization. I never got around to watching the film so correct me if I’m wrong here.

Well anyways, there I was all excited to go and watch it, when one day one of my lecturers started talking about his visit to the cinema over the weekend. He’d gone to watch 2012 with a friend and I listened eagerly to what he had to say about the film. To my surprise, he went on to completely bash the film. In fact most people whom I spoke to had less than flattering feedback for the movie. Leaving the box office success of the film aside, I’m sure everyone agrees the plot was an excellent and rather relevant one.

Over the past decade, so much has happened that makes me believe more and more that the Day of Judgement isn’t so far. The recent spate of disasters just further reinforces my belief—for right or wrong—that the end isn’t too far away. Not very optimistic I know. I mean we’re still far away from the point of the sky turning red and mountains floating around like swabs of cotton wool, as is mentioned in Surah-al-Qariah. Nevertheless, when I think about Rubab Naqvi whom I met in a conference earlier this year and could not for the life of me have ever imagined what a cruel fate awaited her 5 months down the road. She was a born leader and an excellent speaker and neither could have her family imagined what fate awaited their daughter/sister as they dropped her off at the airport that ill-fated morning of 28th, neither could she herself have imagined that such a thing could possibly happen to her 5 minutes before the crash. And yet, look where she is now.

I also think about my aunt’s friends who were coming to Pakistan from Hong Kong to meet the prospective bride for their son. Everyone except the father dead.

The mother and son on their way to their husband’s/father’s funeral. Got to him sooner than they expected.

The newlywed couple who had gotten married just 5 days ago.

The family who couldn’t find a plane to take them to Peshawar so they decided to catch a flight to Islamabad and then fly on to Peshawar from there.

Through whatever relation, people throughout the country could relate to someone on that plane. Could a single person on that plane have thought that boarding this flight was the last thing that they would ever do?

As the country reeled from the shock of the plane crash, another blow was struck. Monsoon rains struck out with a vengeance, especially in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. Panic and destruction everywhere. Roads flooded and bridges broke down, a horror movie played out on our screens—or worse: outside of your windows!

Things were bad to begin with, what with all the political unrest and bomb attacks. But atleast in those cases there was a clear party to level the blame at. We pointed fingers and blew off our steam. When something like this happens, it’s even scarier because you don’t see a sinister motive behind all the devastation; you see Allah’s will in everything. Yes, the blame game is definitely going on in case of the crash, but what of the floods and landslides? Beginning from the 28th, bad stuff just started happening on a roll. The morning of 29th also saw the collapse of a KESC building in Karachi which killed 7 people and many others injured. Maybe I’m reading too much in the signs, maybe it was just human folly, but I think all that has happened in the past week or so is a wakeup call. Allah wants us to understand something. He wants us to know that he isn’t happy with us. He expects more from us. The hundreds of lives that were sacrificed in the past week should not go in vain. They stand the purpose of reminding all of us still here that we still await Allah’s Judgement and that day is bound to come around sooner or later. We need to push ourselves to be better than we are because all of us can be better. Allah loves us all. We need to love him more and pay heed to what He is saying to us. It would be folly to ignore His signs.

Let’s not wait till it’s too late. We all should realize by now that our plans and designs about life and death are all subject to Allah’s will. We were all forwarding messages on Shab-e-Barat and asking each other for forgiveness. We talked about our Aamal Nama being written for the ensuing year and the future of our life and death. But we talked about death superficially. We only thought about death fleetingly. All these dead people could never have known that this was their last Shab-e-Barat. That their book for this year was going to be really, really short. That it would end as soon as it began. Do any of us have the same surety about our life—or death?

In the end I’ll just share a message I got.

So many people have died in our country. Allah SWT may be angry with us. These are His small disasters. We should pray for the people who have died and do Astaghfar as it is the mafhoom of the ayat in Surah-al-Anfal that Allah SWT will not send His Azaab until a Prophet (S.A.W) is present among people, or there are people who do Astaghfar! “But Allah would not punish them while you (O Prophet S.A.W) were with them, nor will He punish them while they seek forgiveness.” (Surah-al-Anfal 8:33) So we should do as much Astaghfar as possible and pray for all the people dying in these accidents.