The Aim of life
What
is the purpose of my life? What is
the purpose of your life? What is the purpose of our lives?
Such questions are frequent in our life.
People
answer these questions in different ways. Some
people believe that the purpose of life is getting wealthy.
But these people do not know what their purpose will be after they become
wealthy. They have collected
millions of dollars. So what?
And then what? What will be their purpose after they get these millions
of dollars? If the purpose of life is to become wealthy, there will be no
purpose after of life is to become wealthy, there will be no purpose after
becoming wealthy. And, in fact,
here comes the problem of some disbelievers or misbelievers.
In some stages of their life, they make collecting money as the target of
life. When they collect the money which they have dreamt of, their life loses
purpose and they live in tension and restlessness and suffer from the panic of
nothingness.
Can
wealth Be and Aim?
We
often hear of a millionaire committing suicide.
Sometimes, not the millionaire himself, but his wife or son or daughter.
The question is this: can aiming at wealth bring happiness to the
individual? In most cases, the
answer in NO. Is the purpose of
collecting wealth a standing purpose? As
we know, the child of five years does not look for wealth; he prefers a toy to a
million dollars. The adolescent of
eighteen does not dream of wealth, because he is busy with more important
things. The old man of ninety years
does not care for money, because he is worried more about his health.
This proves that wealth cannot be a standing purpose in all the stages of
the individual's life.
Wealth
can do a little to bring happiness to a disbeliever, because a disbeliever is
not sure about his end or his fate. A
disbeliever does not know the purpose of his life.
And if he has purpose, this purpose is doomed to be temporary or
self-destructive.
What
is the use of wealth to a disbeliever if he feels scared of the end and skeptic
of everything. A disbeliever may gain a lot of money, but he surely loses
himself.
Worshipping
Allah as an Aim:
on
the contrary, faith in Allah gives the believer the purpose of life he needs.
In Islam the purpose of life is to worship Allah.
The term "worship" covers all acts of obedience to Allah.
This
Islamic purpose of life is standing purpose.
The true Muslim sticks to this purpose throughout all the stages of his
life, whether he is a child, adolescent, adult, or and old man.
Worshipping
Allah makes life purposeful and meaningful especially within the frame work of
Islam. According to Islam, this worldly life is just a short stage
of our life. Then there is the
other life. The first life and the
second life are separated by the death stage, which is a transitory stage
between the stage of the first life and the stage of the second life.
The type of the second life a person deserves depends on his deeds in the
first life. At the end of the death stage comes the Day of Judgment.
On this day, Allah rewards or punishes people according to their deeds in
the first life.
The
first Life as an Examination:
So
Islam looks at the first life as and examination to man.
The first life is a test to man. The
death stage is similar to rest period after the test ( after the first life).
The Day of Judgment is similar to the day of announcing the results of
the examinees. The second life is
the time when each examinee enjoys or suffers from the outcome of his behavior
during the test period.
In
Islam, the line of life is clear, simple, and logical: the first life then
death, then the Day of Judgment, and then the second life.
With this clear line of life, the Muslim has a clear purpose of life.
The Muslim knows he is created by Allah. The Muslim know he has to obey God, because God shall
question him and hold him responsible for his deeds, whether done publicly or
privately, because Allah knows all deeds of all people.
The Muslim knows that his deeds in this first life will determine the
type of his second life. The Muslim
knows that this first life is a very short one, one hundred years, or one
hundred and forty years at most, whereas the second life is an eternal one.
The
Eternity of the Second Life:
This
concept of the eternity of the second life has tremendous effect of the Muslim
during his first life, because the Muslim believes that his first life
determines the shape of his second life. In
addition, this determination will go through the judgment of Allah, the Alijust
and the Almighty.
With
this belief in the second life and the Day of Judgment, the Muslim's life
becomes as purposive as possible and as meaningful as possible.
The Muslim's standing purpose is to go to Paradise in the second life.
In
other words, the Muslim's permanent purpose is to obey Allay, to submit to
Allah, to carry out His orders, and to keep in continuous touch with Him through
prayer (five times a day), through fasting (one month a year), through charity
(as often as possible), and through pilgrimage (once in one's life).
The
Need for a Permanent Purpose:
Disbelivers
have purposes in their lives such as collecting money and property, indulging in
sex, eating, drinking, and dancing. But
all these purposes are passing ones. All
these purposes come and go, go up and down.
Money comes and goes. Health
comes and goes. Sexual activities
cannot continue forever. All these
lusts for money, food, and sex cannot answer the individual's questions to
himself: so what? then what?
However,
Islam saves the Muslim the trouble of asking the question, because Islam makes
it clear to the Muslim, from the very beginning, that the permanent purpose of
the Muslim in this life is to obey Allah in order to go to Paradise in the
second life.
(By:
Muhammad Al Alkhuli)