Chapter Two: The Tragedy of the Night Before
Rashid is not lazy, and that is the first thing that ought to be said before his story. He revised the whole year through. He would wake while the house slept, write out his summaries in a clean hand, and answer whatever he was asked. Then, when nothing was left but the last night, he sat down at his desk and said to himself: I am easy now, I have done enough. He rested his head on his arm to rest a little. And when he opened his eyes the sun was in the middle of the window, and the examination had begun.
The last night
Books open on the desk, a cup of tea gone cold, an alarm set and then silenced by a half-sleeping hand. A long sleep after a year of late nights. He comes into the hall late and finds the questions easy, except that his hand is shaking and the time is running out; and he hands in a paper with part of the answer on it and blank space at the end.
A long life spent in obedience, then a few last years in which the man says: I have sent something on ahead, and I am owed some rest. So he loosens his hold, and a furnishing that never used to tempt him tempts him now, and his hopes run out long ahead of him, so he puts off turning back from one small slip. Then the appointed hour comes at an hour he was not expecting, and the record is folded up at the blank space.
What brought Rashid down was not some great sin. It was a word he said to himself: enough. And whoever says enough to himself in this hall has laid down his pen. The furnishing of the hall works on the tired man more than it works on the brisk one, because the tired man sees in amusement a reward he has earned by what he spent.
The trouble with Rashid is that he measured himself by his past and not by the time he had left. He looked at the months behind him and saw that they were many; he did not look at the hour still to come and see that it, alone, was where the examination lay. Whoever makes his old balance an argument for resting today is spending his capital while he reckons he is spending his profit. And slackening does not come all at once. It begins with putting off one line; then the putting off becomes a habit; then the habit becomes a nature its owner no longer objects to.
The after-effects of this falling back are three, and everyone who was there sees them:
- Terror when the paper is drawn away: not because the lines are short, but because what he was amusing himself with is being pulled out of his hand. He weeps over the seat, not over the mark.
- Regret when the paper is read out: “They indeed are losers who deny their meeting with Allah until, when the Hour cometh on them suddenly, they cry: Alas for us, that we neglected it! They bear upon their backs their burdens. Ah, evil is that which they bear! Naught is the life of the world save a pastime and a sport. Better far is the abode of the Hereafter for those who keep their duty (to Allah). Have ye then no sense?” (Al-An'aam 6:31–32, Pickthall) · “Lest any soul should say: Alas, my grief that I was unmindful of Allah, and I was indeed among the scoffers!” (Az-Zumar 39:56, Pickthall)
- No power to make it up: in the greater hall there is no second sitting and no resit; once the papers are taken in they are not opened again. And the Prophet ﷺ said, of the farewell given to the one who leaves: “Three things follow the dead person: his family, his wealth and his deeds. Two of them come back, and one stays with him: his family and his wealth return, and his deeds remain.” (meaning; Sahih al-Bukhari 6514 — Anas ibn Malik, sound (sahih) — al-Bukhari)
This does not mean that all of Rashid's work went for nothing; the reckoning is with a Lord with whom no work is lost. What is meant is that safety is not only in how much was written, but in the hand staying on the pen until the moment we have no power to put off.