Page 92 - Those Who Exhaust All Their Pleasures In This Life

90 THOSE WHO EXHAUST ALL THEIR PLEASURES IN THIS LIFE

ty that Allah has revealed can individual love, be loved, be
happy and take pleasure in the beauties of this life.

Living to win Allah’s favor: a joy that unbelievers
can never experience
Unbelievers waste their lives running after this worldly
life and therefore lose the deep joy that comes from follow-
ing the Qur’an’s morality and hoping for His love, friend-
ship, and intimacy. Most people have never felt such a pro-
found feeling. Allah is the believers’ closest friend, only
helper and support, and only beloved, and so they dedi-
cate themselves to winning His favor. From the moment a
believer awakens up in the morning, he spends all his time
behaving in the moral way that Allah approves, in the
hopes of winning His love. For a person of faith, acting
every moment so as to please Allah is a source of joy and
great pleasure. In the same way, avoiding behavior that
does not please Him, never compromising his faithfulness
and attachment, produces a sense of deep happiness in a
believer’s heart. A faithful believer tries all his life to be the
one that Allah loves most, the one He is most pleased with
and to be the closest to Him. The pleasure that these
efforts bring cannot compare to the pleasure that any
earthly blessing can give.
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In the Qur’an, Allah reveals: “Allah took Ibrahim as an
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i intimate friend” (Surat an-Nisa’: 125). Believers follow
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example of the prophets. In order to be worthy of blessing
of friendship that Allah gave to Prophet Ibrahim (as) and be
close to Him, they spend their lives pursuing this intimacy.