to live in and enjoy eternally,
for you will be near me for all the time.
Come with your loving brother Jibril.”

There was a knock on the door of the Prophet’s house.  His daughter Fatimah went to open the door and there stood a tall stranger, who addressed her very politely in perfect Arabic, saying that he had to speak to Muhammad ibn Abdullah on urgent business.  He looked so serious, his face was so stern and lean, his eyes so large and dark, that Fatimah became very frightened and refused to admit him. 

She shut the door in his face and ran to her father who was lying in bed, already mortally ill.  “Father, there is a man who must be very rude to disturb you so late in the evening.  He speaks like an Arab nobleman, but I think he has come from a far country.  I did not let him in.  He made my heart skip a beat, so frightened was I.”  Muhammad smiled and spoke gentle words to his daughter, describing the visitor he had not yet seen.

My daughter, he that knocks on our door
is neither man nor woman but a slave
of God who sent him to me as a friend.
Yet many people fear him like a scourge,
although he never does a wicked thing.
Yet he makes widows weep when he arrives
to take their husbands from their loving arms,
he changes a child’s life to orphanhood
and renders childless many parents’ lives.
He is not stopped by doors nor held by walls,
no bolts or locks can shut him out, or in.
He comes when time has come without respite;
he tears the souls away from busy lives.
He goes where go he must and flies away
on noiseless wings as silent as an owl.
When he arrives all human labour ends.
House, wealth and business is left behind,
for loved ones there is but a quick good-bye.
My child, the caller at the door is Death,
the angel who is sent by God to me,