I’ve been reflecting. Deeply. Quietly. Just taking it all in.
We lost President Muhammadu Buhari. Whether or not you liked him, whether or not he led how you hoped, whether or not politics ever made sense to you, the truth is, he had it all. Money. Fame. Power. People stood up for him. Walked behind him. Announced his presence before he even entered a room. He once flew in private planes as a passenger, held passports that could open doors, carried weight with a mere signature. And then, suddenly, he became just “a body” in a plane. Just a body. Just weight. To an extent, being referred to as “remains”
Not headed to another summit or campaign. But to a grave. Buried not in his master bedroom. Not on that favorite chair in his parlor. But beneath the very land he once ruled.
It’s humbling. No matter how high you rise, no matter how big your house is, you will be carried somewhere smaller. Much, much smaller.
And then the death of Alhaji Aminu Dantata. Generous. Loved. A man of wealth who gave and gave and gave. And Sheikh Idris from Bauchi, a man whose tongue was heavy with Qur’an, And Tawheed, whose words many of us clung to like lifelines. He had knowledge. He had Deen. And now he too is gone.
Three men. Between them—KNOWLEDGE, POWER, and WEALTH.
But now, just silence. Covered in white. Washed. Buried in the soil like the rest of us. …eventually…
It just keeps whispering something to me. Over and over.
BE HUMBLE. Before life humbles you.
Because it will. Oh, it will.
When I think of these men, I think of my mother. Her peaceful passing. Her voice now a memory. It makes you hold your breath a little when you realise that no matter how loudly we live, we all leave quietly.
And I know what grief tastes like. I’ve held it on my tongue, heavy, bitter, sometimes numb. And yes, it’s different for everyone. One who has lost a mother can’t fully grasp the ache of someone who has lost a father, and vice versa. But those who’ve tasted the grief of losing a parent, they know. They know the silence that echoes even when the house is full. They know how strange it feels to smile after. So be kind, even to the dead.
Be kind with your words. Speak gently about those who’ve returned to the Most Merciful.
Because eventually, we are all dead. Some of us are just walking dead. Yeah, it’s easy. You breathe. You walk. You forget. But beneath it all, we’re all on borrowed time.
So maybe, just maybe, we should live a little quieter too. A little softer. Be kind. Be human. Be good. Because when we’re gone, that’s all people will say. She was kind. He was generous. She always remembered to call back. He always smiled at the guards. Not what we drove. Not how many followers we had. But who we were. How we made people feel. What we left behind that money couldn’t buy.
قال رسول الله ﷺ:
“ما من شيءٍ أثقلُ في ميزانِ المؤمنِ يومَ القيامةِ من حُسنِ الخلقِ، وإنَّ اللهَ يُبغِضُ الفاحشَ البذيءَ.”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
“There is nothing heavier on the scale of the believer on the Day of Judgment than good character. And indeed, Allah hates the one who is vulgar and obscene.”
So if this reaches your inbox, know that this is not a lecture. It’s a whisper from someone like you. Someone still breathing. Still journeying. Still trying.
We’re on our way to Jannah, In Sha Allah. But we will pass through death. And it won’t ask us how rich we were. Or how famous. Or how many books we wrote. Just how many hearts we touched.
Be kind. Be real. Be humble. Because when the time comes, and it will come, you won’t carry your power or your followers or your degrees. Only your DEEDS.
And I pray yours will be light. In Sha Allah.
اللهم ارضَ عنهم وارضِهِم، ولقِّهم وأنتَ راضٍ عنهم، ولقُوك وأنتَ أحبُّ إليهم من الدنيا وما فيها. اللهم اجعل لقاؤهم بك أجمل من كل شيءٍ ذاقوه في الدنيا، واجعل قبورهم روضةً من رياض الجنة، واجعل ما بعد الموت أرحم لهم مما قبلَه
O Allah, be pleased with them and make them pleased. Let them meet You while You are well pleased with them, and let meeting You be more beloved to them than this world and all it contains. O Allah, make their meeting with You more beautiful than anything they ever experienced in this Dunya. Make their graves gardens from the gardens of Jannah, and make what comes after death more Merciful to them than what came before it. Amīn
Fi Amànillah ✿