Q:

Assalaamu’alaikum Warahmatullah ya Syaikh

Can a healthy lifestyle extends one’s age? Can such thing be considered as ikhtiar?

A:

Wa alaykum assalam warahmatullah wabarakatuh.

In the Nam of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Mercy-giving.

All praise is due to Allah. Peace and blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad.

Islam commends its followers to lead a healthy life and have strong bodies. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “A strong believer is better and more beloved to Allah than a weak one; though both have goodness in them.” (Muslim)

Leading a healthy lifestyle is, of course, a reason and cause, like other reasons and causes, to protect our bodies against many diseases and even keeps up our spirits. Still death has unlimited causes.

Our ages have already been predetermined by Allah and so are the causes to keep us alive for that predetermined time and the causes that terminate our lives when that time comes.

As Muslims, we should follow the legitimate ways to keep a healthy body and healthy lifestyle, believing after all in the Quranic principle, “And no aged person is given long life, nor is anyone’s life shortened, (dying young), but that it is (registered) in a Book (preserved in Heaven). Indeed, that for Allah is (ever so) easy.” (Fatir 35:11)

The Quran explicitly declares, “It is Allah (alone) who takes the souls (of people) at the (predestined) time of their death. But as for those (souls) that have not yet died, (He takes them) during their sleep. Then He withholds the ones upon which He has decreed death, while He sends the others (back) to (reach) a stated term (of life).” (Az-Zumar 39:42)

Almighty Allah knows best.