Dr. Tanveer Ahmad is a consultant pediatrician doctor at Integrated Health Services (IHS), Islamabad. He has been my children’s doctor ever since they were born. He is a very kind doctor. He checks children very carefully, sensitively and at great length. He avoids giving medicine as far as he can, recommending more of natural herbs and preventive measures, although he is in the Health Industry. This means that his professional ethics are stronger than the business benefit of the industry that he belongs to. It does not mean that he is paranoid to medicines, for he has twice admitted my little daughter to the hospital and given her injections the size suitable for cows. His avoidance to give severe and lengthy prescriptions to children in fact indicates that he is sensitive to the fragility of children to hard chemicals. After Allah Almighty, we trust our children with Dr. Tanveer, so much so that when our children fall ill, we try to stretch and bear out with the illness until we can get an appointment with him specifically. Many a times he has waived off the doctor’s fee, when the visit is a simple pop-in reports check or when the case becomes a referral case. He is a far cry from what we call in our local dialect, a chor doctor. He is a very patient doctor, listening attentively to the blabbering of us parents about our children. He is sensitive to the parents as well, gently pointing out our mistakes in handling our children’s wellbeing and then giving us the encouragement and confidence to do better. He is very amiable, joking sometimes and always smiling a bright smile, adding color to an already colorful children’s hospital.
January 2015: Dr. Tanveer’s five-year-old son, Muhammad Ahmad, died.
It was a shock.
Many weeks have passed but I feel that I am still in shock. I felt like weeping when I heard the news. Many weeks have passed and I still feel like weeping.
How could his son die? Why did he die? What was Allah’s Wisdom in it? Why did the son of a doctor die who takes care of other people’s children, and does it so well? Dr. Tanveer had given life to so many children; for to cure a child is to prevent him from death, and to prevent a child from death is to give him life. How will Dr. Tanveer bear the loss of his own son? These ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ and ‘hows’ rocketed my mind when I heard the news.
Dr. Tanveer’s son was the only son, along with three sisters. He was a heart patient with a ‘hole’ in his heart. He was at the tender age of only five when he died. I have never met him, but he seems so dear to me. I do not know what he looked like but I can exactly imagine his face expressions, perhaps because my own children are about the same age. Oh my God! What will his mother do? How will she pick up his toys? Where will she put away his clothes? What will she do with his small school books? How did she look at her dead child’s face? What will she do when she wants to kiss that small, cute face a few days from now?
Compassion played havoc with my imagination. Oh the day he was born. Oh the day he first smiled. Oh the day he first crawled. Oh the day he took his first steps. Oh the day he took his last breath. Oh the first time I noticed something was wrong with my child. Oh the first time the doctor told me that there was something wrong with my child’s heart. Oh the moment the doctor recommended a heart surgery for my little angel. I chose the best doctor. I chose the best hospital. I pulled out all the money that I could. Lo I would have not gone for the operation. Would my child have been alive today? Did I take the wrong decision, or was it Destiny? Oh the day we woke up for the operation. Oh the moment I held my child’s hand and made him sit in the car. He turned to me with his innocent face and asked me, ‘Baba, will I be okay after the operation?’ I smiled at him and assured him that he will be perfectly fine and we will play again. I said so to him, while my own heart was in a tumult. As we reached the hospital, I parked the car, got down from my side, opened the car door for him and held out my hand for Ahmad. Little did I know, that I had just given him a ride to his death.
Can any parent do that?
But, we are all doing it every day, unknowingly, knowingly or half-knowingly!
Death, is a formidable phenomena for all of us, and we do not think about it. We do not want to think about it. The reason is that we are a little short of imagination. For the reality is that Death is not the end of Life but just a Gateway; from this World into the Next World. In fact, it is the beginning of the Eternal Life.
But the critical point is that it is a gateway which opens up to not one but to two destinations; Heaven or Hell.
The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the words we speak, the profession we profess, the thoughts we think, the deeds we do, the activities we choose … all add up to a numerical address that will be found either in Heaven or Hell. Have you ever rolled down your car window and asked somebody ‘Where is H.100, St. 50?’ And they replied, ‘No, it is not in this sector, but it is in the other sector’. Similarly, the Angels will tell us in which ‘sector’ is our Destiny, based on our deeds of this World.
These are fast times, and each one of us is driving fast on the road of Life, turning right, turning left, going ahead, reversing, accelerating…
Do we ever realize that we are racing towards Death? Of course we are! All of us are racing towards Death…
From the moment that we choose a life partner, to when we make a family, to when we name our child, to when we choose a school for our child and all along when we role model for our child, we are driving ourselves and our children to Heaven or Hell. For the drive will continue, it is not in our hands to stop the car of Life, but what lies in our hands is steering it towards Heaven.
Many of us make choices in Life, which wins us a ticket to Heaven. Many of us make choices in life, which win us a ticket to Hell. Do we realize? How will we realize? How will we know? Do we have the address and directions of our Destination? Do we have knowledge of Quran and Sunnah? What are we doing with ourselves, our spouse, our children, our parents, our relatives, our friends? What are the choices we make? What are the suggestions we give? We guide towards what?
If each step of our life could be translated by some ‘Deed’s Calculator’, it would give us an evaluation such as, ‘Super! You have just turned towards Jannah’, ‘Uh-oh, you have just taken a wrong turn, a turn towards Hell’, ‘Bingo! You have earned five points for Jannah’, ‘Rats! You have lost fifty points from your scale, making you eligible for Hell now’, ‘Speed up! You are moving too slow, you cannot reach Jannah at this pace’, ‘Slow down! Danger ahead! Stop and rethink! This path goes to Hell…Are you sure you want to continue?’… and so on. But we do not have an external gadget Deed’s Calculator’s with us. But what we do have with us is an internal gadget, a heart. That’s right, Prophet Muhammed Pbuh told us that this heart tells us all.
It means that when we think something, our heart gives us an indication whether this is a good thought or not. When we say something, our heart gives us an indication whether this is a good say or not. When we do something, our heart gives us an indication whether this is a good deed or not. Should we continue thinking it, saying it or doing it or should we take a turn? Should we turn in Repentance? But only such a heart can become this indicator which has been sensitized with the knowledge of Quran and Sunnah. Else, it just remains to be a dark, dusty, rusted blood pump and nothing more.
Allah Almighty gave an Eternal Life to the child of a doctor who gives life to other people’s children in this World.
Dr. Tanveer Ahmed, unknowingly, actually and physically drove his son to Jannah, for narrated Mother Aisha RA in Sahih Muslim: A child died and I said, ‘There is happiness for this child who is now a bird from amongst the birds of Paradise...
And Dr. Tanveer Ahmed, unknowingly, also reserved for himself a place in Jannah, for narrated Syedna Abu Hurayrah RA in Sahih Muslim: When the child will meet his parents, he would take hold of their cloth and would not take off his hand from it until Allah causes his parents to enter Paradise…
What about us ? We are driving too ... are we moving in the right direction ? Are we going fast enough ? Are we sure ?
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