By Mr. Engineer Hamid Qureshi

Honorary Director, Qur’anic Arabic Classes, Nagpur.

On Thursday, 20th October, 2005

In the name of The Most Compassionate and Most Merciful, One and Only One GOD Almighty, I pray for a peaceful world, full of harmony and tolerance. I convey my Salaams to all the audience.

Respected ladies and gentlemen,

I offer my heartfelt condolence on the sad demise of Sister Monica. We all are bound to leave this world sooner or later. The question is where we go? The three Heavenly Scriptures, ie: The Torah, The Gospel and The Qur’an inform us in crystal clear terms. Please allow me to recite verse 29/57 from Holy Qur’an in its original heavenly wordings:

“Every living creature is bound to taste death, and in the end, unto your LORD you all shall be brought back.”

(From Holy Qur'an 29/57)

It is very clear by modern science and human intellect that our stay at this planet Earth is temporary. Our final destination is back to our LORD. And there, our final, eternal, unending and everlasting life will start. For that only, we are sent here in this world for the test to achieve the success of the hereafter.

Now the most important question is, how to get success of eternal life? Whether the success rest on cast, color, gender, nation, language, religion? There must be a universal criteria? Let us ask this question to our Creator? HE had described this criterion in verse 2/62 of the Holy Qur’an.

“Those who are Muslims, and who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabeans – all who worship the One and Only GOD, and are conscious of accountability, and conduct themselves righteously, shall have their reward with their LORD and on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.”

(From Holy Qur'an 2/62)

So I call all the audience, as well as all the humanity, to accept the slavery and bondage of One and Only One Master Who Created us, Who Nourishes us. I request all to be careful for the accountability on the Dooms Day. We all are accountable individually, for all our acts, deeds and utterances of this worldly life. We have to discharge our duties towards our parents, our relatives, our environment, our fellow being, our land, and all other habitants of the globe.

For the departed soul, we pray to the Lord of the universe, to accept her efforts. We should learn the lesson from her life to serve the humanity. The services of Christians have been appreciated in the Holy Qur’an in verse 5/82:

“………… and you will surely find nearest in affection to the Muslims, those who claim: ‘We are Christians’. That is because among them, there are persons who are devoted to learning, and among them there are priests, and they are not boastful?”

(From Holy Qur'an 5/82)