Crikey!

Mad props, belatedly, to the one and only Crocodile Hunter. He was the type of person, at least from what we saw, who made you wish you could make Islam manifest in an individual of your own will. His fate is with God now, but I don't doubt that his selfless care for Allah's creation will bear significant weight. (I am reminded of Imam Bukhari's recording of Abu Huraira's narration of the prostitute who gave drink to a parched dog, and Allah knows best.)

There are a few things that came to mind when I heard he had died.

Firstly, I would argue that not since Jacques Cousteau has someone so popularised the love of nature as Steve Erwin was able to do in his short life. Most of us thought he was either totally awesome or completely crazy, but one thing is for sure: he piqued our interest in nature and its preservation. His advocacy should not go unrecognised.

Secondly, the nature of his death is a reminder to everyone. I was listening to Jack Hanna's commentary on CNN shortly after news of Steve Erwin's death surfaced. He mentioned that death by stingray is almost unheard of. In fact, stingrays dwell at the bottom of most bodies of water in which they reside, thus making most injuries caused by them on the lower extremities.

Furthermore, the quality of the sting is hardly life-threatening and should never even lead to hospitalisation. Steve happened to be swimming above or near one in just the right orientation such that a whipping of its tail exposed the stinger and lanced Steve's ribcage and lodged the toxin near or in his heart. The precision of the strike is incalculably uncanny.

Thus died a man who wrestled crocodiles and handled far more poisonous creatures with his bare hands: at the otherwise innocuous prick of a friendly animal - who'd have thunk it?

Maybe it doesn't sound so profound when I say it so inarticulately, but think of it like this: before Steve Erwin was born, God had ordained he would exist, grow to love animals and nature, commit dangerous acts of reckless showmanship in order to draw attention to the animal kingdom and its preservation, win the hearts of adults and children everywhere, and, in less than a half-century, perish almost instantly at the less-than-1-in-a-million-probability placement of the stinger of a harmless creature whom He created several years later to kill the former.

Your death and mine are similarly mapped and probably similarly unexpect-able, give or take. Contemplation of death is an essential quality of a being who is cognizant of his Lord.

Despite how surreal deaths of celebrities are, there can always be lessons in the loss of life. Closer to home, the last month saw the taking of many lives by the Angel of Death in the Minnesota community. Leaving such events without reflection would be a travesty and we pray God grants them Paradise.