I always do not have enough time to spend for the cause of Allah due to my work, life, etc. Is it possible for me to do in my later age?

Related to this is a hadith narrated by Abdullah Ibn Abbas that Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said, “There are two blessings about which people are at a loss for: good health and free time for doing good deeds.” [1]

Time and health are things by which we could improve the quality of our life. However, Satan has tricked us and we are not able to benefit from them. So we have been deceived and tricked.  This is the reason that though people can do lots of voluntary acts, they don’t do it. People say when I get old then I will become a pious person. But it so happens that when people get feeble, old, they lose their health and become sick. To them even the compulsory acts become great strain.

So all your plans about doing the voluntary acts at an old age, when you will have nothing else to do, are false. In a sense, you may find yourself in a situation where you can’t even do the compulsory acts. So you are being deceived and fooled.  The time in which you should be doing the maximum number of voluntary acts is when you are still young. This is when we have to do the maximum.

As Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ)  mentioned in the Hadith of the seven types of people who will be under Allah’s throne on the Last Day, among them was “a young man who has been brought up in the worship of Allah” [2]

Similarly, when we have the spare time, we should  try to utilize that time to the maximum because we have no guarantee that we will live till the age  of becoming old or will have the spare time in future. Often we have something good in our mind to do, but we find some excuse to take it off, it can be reading Qur’an or doing extra prayers or exercise. We find excuses and explanation to delay such works till next week or whatever. This is how Satan tricks us. It is important that the time we have, we should make the maximum benefit of it. This is how our approach should be.

Whatever spare time we have, we should try to use it in serving to Allah, in doing things which please Allah.

It does not mean that to do that one becomes like a monk, that is, a person who does not have any kind of life beyond Masjid and home. He goes from Masjid to home, and from home to Masjid. No, this is not the way of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) did not live only in the Masjid, rather he (ﷺ) lived a complete life.

However, whatever time he had, he (ﷺ) utilized it spending on what was pleasing to Allah. It is because within those things, there are the things that are pleasing to us also. It does not mean that whatever is pleasing to Allah is displeasing to us. No, many of the things, which Allah prescribed as pleasing to him, they are pleasing to us also. We have to find those things. We have to utilize our time in performing those acts. Whatever time we live, it will benefit us on the Day of Judgment.

We end with the hadith narrated by Abdullah Ibn Abbas  in  which the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said, “Take benefit of five before five: Your youth before your old age, your health before your sickness, your wealth before your poverty, your free time before you are preoccupied, and your life before your death.” [3]

References:

[1] Saheeh Bukhari, 8:76:421

[2] Saheeh Bukhari, 8:82:798

[3] Reported by Al-Haakim