Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk, is very unfortunate and unhappy for fear of death and seeks immortality. His grandfather Utnapishtim (the Sumerian name of the famous flood hero Noah), who is the only man to have achieved immortality, tells him "if you wish it, make your wish, you must resist sleep for six days and seven nights". But Gilgamesh cannot resist sleep, he falls asleep and thus realizes that humans cannot resist death. Utnapishtim tells him that there is a magical herb at the bottom of the seas and that if he finds it and eats it, he will be immortal. Gilgamesh finds the herb but loses it to a snake and thus loses his chance of immortality forever.

The Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest epics of humanity, beautifully explains that there is no cure for death. Humans have always feared death, waited for it with anxiety and curiosity since the dawn of time. In fact, would it be correct to say that they thought and acted as if they would never die and did not wait? No matter what age they are, they do not approve of death, neither for themselves nor for their loved ones, it always comes unexpectedly.

The Balontoks living on the Celebes islands believe that they are mortal because they eat bananas instead of shrimp. The natives of South Africa, on the other hand, refused the ugly old man sent by their gods to test them and welcomed a beautiful young man, who turned out to be death.

In all mythologies there are hundreds of stories derived from the fear of death and the desire for immortality, whereas we will leave this world as we came into it, as Aşık Veysel says: "we are traveling day and night in a two-door inn" and one day we will see the end of the road like every living being. Although it may seem like a blink of an eye to some and a soap bubble to others, death is the source of another life...

Like the solid, liquid and gaseous state of existence, before falling into the womb, while invisible in the minds of the mother and father, the human being who becomes liquid and falls into the womb will die there after 9 months and be born into life, and when the time comes, he will die here and be born into the real world.

In the Qur'an it is written: "Every soul shall taste death" (Surah Ankebut, 57), "Allah has appointed a term for mankind" (Surah Isra, 89).
According to Islamic Sufism, there is no such thing as death, the soul that comes from Allah returns to Allah. This is the soul's liberation from darkness and its return to light, its passage from fena to bekaa, from mortality to immortality, the beginning of true and eternal life. In another Islamic mysticism it is said that 150 thousand years in this world is one day in the real world. In other words, if we live until 150 thousand years old, it is as if we have lived one day in the divine realm. Anyway, death removes the distinction between short life and long life, time is only for this world. Even in this world there are some species of butterflies whose life span is only one day. A butterfly that dies at eight o'clock in the morning is considered young, and a butterfly that dies at dusk is considered old. Who is lucky or unlucky in such a small life? But what is this world, mountains, seas and even 150 thousand years compared to eternity? Solomon was the man who lived the longest, he died at the age of 750, but he died...

According to Mevlevism, the deceased person becomes a bride, just like a girl who will meet her lover, she will meet her lover (Allah). For this reason, the night of Mevlana Celalettin's death is called sheb-i aruz (wedding night).

"The daily work of your life is to build the house of death. While you are in life, you are also in death; because when you come out of life, you come out of death. In other words, you are in death after life, but you are dying while you are alive," Montaigne also describes death...

Since all days lead to death, but only the last day arrives; then let us prepare our only roadmaps...

These roadmaps are nothing but love, a smile, a greeting, a little help, a favor, a kindness offered to being human, touching people, to other lives, to existence, to this world, to humanity...

Don't we owe the rest to the Creator?

Mukaddes Pekin Başdil

Researcher-Author

Source: Denizli Haber