“Wasting time is worse than death, because wasting time cuts you off from Allah and the Home of the Hereafter, while death cuts you off from this world and its people.”

Ibn al-Qayyim (691–751 AH / 1292–1350 CE) wrote al-Fawa’id as a notebook of short reflections rather than a treatise, and this one belongs to a run of them about what an hour is worth. The line that follows it reads: “The whole of this world, from its beginning to its end, is not worth an hour of grief — so what of a lifetime of it?” His ranking is the point: death takes this world from you, while wasted time takes what lies beyond it.