The Last Dive Of A Whale?

By Dr. Ashraf Zainabi

Two friends sat by a sea-side, at the lowest crease of its shore. The sky burned with hues of amber and gold as the waves lapped gently at the shore.

Silent for a quite long time, watching the vastness of the ocean stretch before them, its depths holding secrets beyond human reach. The wind carried a whisper, something ancient, something eternal.

One of them finally spoke, eyes fixed on the horizon,“This world was never meant for people like us?” The other smiled faintly.“It never was,” he said.“Not for those who see beyond it”. We chase shadows here, trying to hold onto things that were never ours to begin with. Wealth, status, recognition-none of it means anything when the soul longs for something else.”

The first friend sighed, tracing patterns in the sand.“The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said, 'Be in this world as though you were a stranger or a traveler passing by.' But look at us-we build as if we will live forever, we hoard as if we will never leave, we cling as if this dunya will offer us permanence. And yet, every soul tastes loss before it tastes death.”

The second nodded.“That is why some souls seek solitude-not out of despair, but out of clarity. The noise of this world is deafening. It drowns the whispers of the heart, the remembrance of Allah. Sometimes, the only way to hear again is to leave it behind.”

During this conversation a lone whale surfaced in the distance, its massive body gliding effortlessly through the water. The two friends watched in quiet reverence as it took a final breath and began its descent.“Do you know,” the second friend said,“when a whale knows its time has come, it takes one last dive-deep into the abyss, never to rise again. Not in fear, not in struggle, just in surrender.”

The first friend's gaze softened. The second one continued“Like the souls who detach from the world. The ones who stop chasing and start remembering. The ones who choose the solitude of dhikr over the chaos of desires.”

There is no grief in this solitude, no despair in this departure. Like the whale's descent into the deep, the soul finds peace not in the struggle, but in the stillness that follows. The ocean does not mourn the whale; it merely absorbs it, making no distinction between presence and absence. And so, the hermit, the weary wanderer, the forsaken soul-he, too, dissolves into something greater, leaving behind the agony of longing, the ache of unfinished stories.

At the bottom of the sea, where light no longer reaches, the whale's body comes to rest. It is not the end, but a transformation-flesh becomes nourishment for unseen lives, and in death, it gives back to the world that once carried it. So it is with the soul that withdraws from the world, finding in solitude the most profound communion of all.

For in the quiet of that final surrender, there is no loss, no fear-only the vast, eternal embrace of peace.

“There is a kind of peace in that, isn't there?” the second friend murmured.“To live simply, to live for Allah alone, to slip away unnoticed-not as an escape, but as a return. Like the last dive of the whale, not into nothingness, but into the depth where it truly belongs.”

The sun had dipped lower, and the call to Maghrib echoed in the distance. The friends rose, brushing the sand from their hands.“Perhaps,” the first friend said,“the greatest freedom is not in having everything, but in needing nothing except Him.”

And with that, they walked toward the mosque, leaving the ocean behind-yet carrying the lesson of the whale in their hearts.

• The author is a teacher and researcher

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