I read in some newspapers that a man, a Muslim merchant, committed suicide not due to financial hardship, severe illness, or a miserable state, but because he mourned the death of a friend; thus, he killed himself.
The believer knows without a doubt the dire consequences of suicide; how could it be easy for him, on the last day of his life, to add to the loss of his worldly existence the loss of his afterlife, which is the only consolation left to him for all the misery and hardship he faced in life?
Suicide is a corrupt impulse and an abhorrent habit, cast upon us by Western civilization along with its various evils and afflictions.
We had previously marveled at the Easterners' eagerness to imitate the Westerners even in matters that harm their honor and dignity, and when we wanted to emphasize this eagerness, we would say: "Soon, an Easterner may kill himself upon realizing that this is a Western custom," for what was once distant has become close, and what we considered obligatory has become familiar.
Suicide is the ultimate expression of cowardice and weakness; it is the peak of turmoil and madness within the mind. I believe that a person does not resort to suicide with even a fragment of sanity and awareness remaining in his head.
Self-love is an instinct placed by God Almighty in the soul of man, to be the source of his life and the foundation of his existence; yet the one who commits suicide hates himself more than an enemy hates his foe. He is abnormal in his nature, strange in his character, and opposing to God's will in sustaining and developing the universe. Those who possess such traits are devoid of heart and mind.
There is no excuse for the suicidal individual in taking his own life, no matter how filled his heart is with worries and his soul with sorrow, nor how much he suffers from the calamities of time and the crises of life; for what he has chosen is far worse than what he fled from, and what he has lost is many times greater than what he has gained.
If he were reasonable, he would understand that the agonies of death gather, in a moment, all the pains of life and its tribulations accumulated over long years, and that spending even one hour in the torment prepared for one who has killed himself is far more severe than all he complains of and all the miseries he endures in life, even if he lived for a thousand years.
"Oh, how numerous are the worries of this world! And how long are its sorrows! A person does not awaken from one concern except to another, nor does he rest from one calamity except to a similar one. Its inhabitants continuously oscillate between health and illness, poverty and wealth, dignity and humiliation, happiness and misery. If it were right for every troubled soul to abhor life, and for every grieving person to take his own life, the world would be devoid of its people, and staying in it would become untenable, indeed the journey to it would become impossible. The divine law concerning His creation would be altered, and you will not find any change in the law of God.
The killer is not called a criminal except because he has a hardened heart, and a stone-like spirit; and even more hardened is the one who kills himself; for there is no animosity or grudge between him and his own self as there is between the killer and the killed. Thus, he is the greatest of criminals and the cruelest of killers.
Those who commit suicide deceive themselves by thinking they are convinced of the supremacy of death over life, and that they act out of reflection and insight. Yet, as soon as they find themselves in the first predicament of death, they return to their senses and instincts, and they seek to escape whatever they have fallen into if there is a way out.
If he throws himself into water, he flails about, extending his hand to whoever he hopes will rescue him, wishing he could redeem his life with all that his right hand possesses. If he locks himself in his room to die choking on gas, or if the ceiling of the room were to collapse on him, he would long to inhale even a single breath of air, even if he would live afterwards with a broken hand and foot, and impaired hearing and sight.
The thought of suicide is a whisper from the devil and a step from the wicked self. So, if one's mind provokes him towards this idea, let him take his time until he recognizes how he would endure the agonies of death, the pains of the withdrawal, and what people would say about him after his death, and whether there could be among them a justifier for him, or someone compassionate towards him, or someone who would moderate in criticizing or mocking him. He should, beforehand, envision the forms of torment and the types of punishment that God has prepared in the hereafter for those like him.
I do not believe he would act accordingly after that unless he is a beast in human clothing, or a hero from the madhouse."
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(*) Complete works of Mustafa Lutfi Al-Manfaluti, pages 404-407.
