The Inevitable: Reflections on Death and Beyond

Dr. Aid ibn Abdullah al-Qarni is a Saudi Islamic scholar, preacher, poet, and one of the bestselling Arabic-language authors of the modern era — best known internationally for La Tahzan ('Don't Be Sad'), a self-help book grounded in Qur'anic and Prophetic guidance that has sold an estimated ten million copies worldwide and has been translated into more than thirty languages. Born in 1379 AH / 1959 CE in the village of al-Qarn in the Asir region of southwestern Saudi Arabia, he memorized the Qur'an in his youth and pursued his formal Islamic education at the Imam Muhammad ibn Sa'ud Islamic University in Riyadh, where he earned his bachelor's, master's (in Prophetic biography), and PhD.

Al-Qarni's writing combines classical Islamic scholarship with literary fluency, accessible language, and unusually heavy use of poetry — both classical Arabic verse and his own compositions. La Tahzan was followed by a series of works in the same register: Hatta Takuna As'ad al-Nas ('That You Become the Happiest of People'), Wa Ja'a Shahr al-Sawm ('And the Month of Fasting Came'), Fiqh al-Awlawiyyat ('The Fiqh of Priorities'), Ishraqat Qur'aniyya, and the multi-volume al-Tafsir al-Muyassar. He has authored more than seventy books and recorded thousands of lectures and Friday sermons, with his television appearances making him one of the most recognizable preachers in the Arabic-speaking world.

La Tahzan remains his enduring legacy — a book that, in countless personal accounts, has accompanied Muslim readers through grief, anxiety, and depression by gently reorienting them toward tawakkul, gratitude, and the rich consolations of the Qur'anic worldview. Al-Qarni continues to lecture and publish widely from Saudi Arabia.