Page 20 - Faith: The Way to Happiness

FAITH: THE WAY TO HAPPINESS

Everything They Do Is the Result of a Passion
for "Diversion"
As is explained in the previous section, anybody who lives
without taking Allah's approval as his aim makes life nothing but a
deception. Thus, instead of making the eternal Hereafter their basic
t a rget and working towards it, such people stick to the short term
passions and pleasures of the world.
In the life of this world, people who are heedless of reality in-
volve themselves in various things which prevent them from earn-
ing Allah's approval and make them forgetful of Allah. In fact, all
these things are blessings sent by Allah for the purpose of testing
people, but these people turn them into pursuits in which to waste
their time and to which they are passionately attached. In the
Qur'an, Allah tells us which of His blessings have become a passion
for people:
To mankind the love of worldly appetites is painted in
glowing colors: women and children, and heaped-up
mounds of gold and silver, and horses with fine markings,
and livestock and fertile farmland. All that is merely the
enjoyment of the life of this world. The best homecoming
is in the presence of Allah. (Surah Al ‘Imran: 14)
Since some people have adopted as their main aim not the ap-
p roval of Allah but various worldly objectives, they become pas-
sionately attached to their earthly privileges. With every passing
day, these drive them further from Allah and bind them even more
tightly to the life of this world. They waste their time on vain things
without considering the short span of life Allah has granted them on
earth, for they are not engaged in striving for Allah's approval and
do not imagine that they will have to give an accounting in the
Hereafter.

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