Jumu'ah Live: "Taqwa: Conscious Of Allah In All Things At All Times" (III)

3:140. If a wound hath touched you be sure a similar wound hath touched the others.  Such days (of varying fortunes) We give to men and men by turns: that Allah will make known those that believe and that He may take to Himself from your ranks martyr-witnesses (to Truth). And Allah loves not those that do wrong.

Ibn Mas'ud relates that the Holy Prophet drew a rectangle and in the middle of it he drew a line lengthwise the upper end of which protruded beyond the rectangle.  Across this middle line he drew a number of short lines.  He indicated that the figure represented man, that the encircling rectangle was death, the middle line stood for his desires and the short lines across it were the trials and tribulations of life.  He said: "If one of these misses him he falls a victim to one of the others" (Bukhari) Riyadh As-Salihin #580 p. 123