By Alperen Ozalp
Outline
• Introduction
– What is the purpose of life?
• To Know God
– Reason, Knowledge and Salvation
• Surrendering to God
– To receive and Experience Attributes of God
– Is this life a test?
– Is this life a struggle?
• Learning in Test and Struggle
– Forgiveness
Introduction
•
Is purpose of life restricted to following the
good life according to the requisites of civilization?
• Is the sole aim of the feelings and senses included in
the machine of your life is restricted to
satisfying the low desires of the soul in
this fleeting life?
What is the purpose of life?
• There are two aims:
– 1st to recognize the True Bestower, and
offer God thanks and worship.
– 2nd is to know and experience the Divine Attributes
of God in the world, and by experiencing them, to
believe in them.
• Through these two basic aims, human
becomes a true human being.
TO KNOW GOD
• The wonders of creation, such as the gestation of
animals, the movements of the heavenly bodies,
atmospheric phenomena, the variety of animal and
vegetable life so marvelously well adopted to human
needs. All those things are signs for those of insight (3:190)
(5:53-58, 102-103; 10:42-43; 22:45-46; 59:14)
(2:166-171; 25:44-46)
He who created the eye of the mosquito
is the one who created the sun.
A challenge to Reason and Knowledge
•
Muslims believe that religion must make sense,
that must be wisdom and rationale behind
everyone of its elements.
While admitting the limitations of human thought, nonetheless
give reason a vital role. The source of this
insistence is undoubtedly Quran.
REASON: Quran asks almost incredulously
• Do they not travel through the land, so that
their hearts may thus learn wisdom? (26:7)
• Do they not travel through the land, so that
their hearts may thus learn wisdom? (22:44)
•
•
•
Do they not examine the earth? (26:7)
Do they not look at the sky above them? (50:6)
(88:17), (56:63), (2:269), (29:42-43), (39:9)
KNOWLEDGE: First command
READ
• The very first revelation:
• Read, in the name of your Lord, who created – created
human from tiny thing that clings. Read, for your Lord is
the Most Bountiful, who taught the use of the pen,
taught human what he did not know. (96:1-5)
• The use of pen: KNOWLEDGE
SALVATION is obtained through…
• Quran enjoins us to study critically our
behavior and beliefs.
•
•
Salvation is obtained
through searching out and
surrendering to GOD.
• We will show them our signs in the farthest
reaches and within themselves until it is clear
to them that it is the truth. (41:53)
SURRENDERING TO GOD
Belief in God requires reflection on the creation, together with
knowledge of God and worship of God, and results truthful
acts and harmonious behaviors.
• We grow in
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Virtue
Wisdom
Justice
Mercy
Forgiveness
Righteousness
Concern and love
Compassion, patience and generosity
To receive and experience God's attributes
• We are to pursue them not only to make the world a better place,
When I have fashioned human, breathed
into him of My Spirit. (15:29)
•
We grow in our ability to receive and
experience God’s mercy, forgiveness,
compassion, justice, righteousness and love.
We build a strong personal relationship with God
To receive and experience God's attributes
The aims of the Quran are to provide a barrier against the
appetites of man thus encouraging him to engage in
higher pursuits, giving satisfaction to his higher
aspirations and directing him towards the
achievements of human perfection.”
(Beziuzzaman Said Nursi)
Why were we not created with these
qualities from the start?
• Quran emphasizes three essential
components of human’s
moral –spiritual evolution:
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–
–
–
–
Free will,
ability to choose
Intellect,
learning from one’s choices
Struggle
Why do we have to experience this life?
•
Quran insists that, in the design of
God, our earthly life is a necessary
stage in human existence:
Those (are believers) who remember
God standing and sitting and lying down, and reflect upon
the creation of the heavens and the earth (saying): “Our
Lord, you did not create all this in vain.” (3:191)
Why do we have to experience this life?
• And We did not create the heaven and the earth and
whatever is between them as a game. If we wished to
take a pastime, We would have taken it by Ourselves,
if We were to do that at all! (21:16-17)
• Do you think that We created you for nothing and that
you will not be returned to Us? The true Sovereign is
too exalted above that. (23:115-116)
Why do we have to experience this life?
“Man came to this world to be perfected by means of
knowledge and supplication. In regard to his nature
and abilities everything is tied to knowledge. And the
foundation, source, light, and spirit of all true
knowledge is knowledge of God, and its essence and
basis is belief in God.”
(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi)
Is this life a test?
• We are tested in this world
so that we may become
– clarified,
– purified
– attain virtue and perfection
through our choice (free will)
• We find trials and tests in every aspect of our lives.
Is this life a struggle?
• To remember the life’s ultimate purpose in difficult times.
• Assuredly we will try you with
something of danger and hunger
and loss of some worldly goods,
and of lives and the fruits of your
labor. But give glad tidings to those
who are patient in adversity,- those
who, when calamity befalls them,
say, “Truly, to God we belong and, truly, to Him we shall
return.” (2:155-156)
Is this life a struggle? - 2
• You will certainly be tried in
your possessions and
yourselves. (3:186)
• Oh you who believe! Be patient in adversity, and vie
with one another in perseverance, and be ever ready,
and remain conscious of God, so that you may attain
success. (3:200)
LEARNING IN TEST & STRUGGLE
• It is by learning from one’s own mistakes,
– Rising above our mistakes,
that we learn and progress to
higher levels of goodness.
– Excepting the one who repents and believes and does
righteous deeds- then for those, God will change their
evil deeds into good deeds, for God is Most Forgiving,
Most Merciful. (25:70)
God is responsive to those who seek Him:
• And if my servants call on Me, surely I am near. I
heed the call of every caller. So let them with a call
unto Me and let them believe in Me, in order that they
may be guided aright. (2:186)
• When you approach God by an arm’s length, He
approaches you by two, and if you come to Him
walking, He comes to you running. (Hadith, saying of
Muhammed)
Sin as self destruction, rebellion against
one’s true nature.
• Evidence have come to you from your Lord. Then the one
who sees does so for his own soul, and the one who is
blind, it is upon himself. (6:104)
• We have revealed to you the Book for mankind with the
truth. Then the one who is guided, it is for his own soul, the
one who strays, his straying is only upon himself. (39:41)
• They did not do injustice to Us,
but rather they wronged
their own souls. (7:160)
Forgiveness
• O My servants who have sinned against yourselves,
never despair of God’s mercy. Surely God forgives all
sins. He is the Most forgiving the Most Merciful.
(39:53)
• In reality we are doing injustice
and violence to ourselves by
oppressing and robbing ourselves
of our spiritual ascent.
Summary
The purpose of our creation is to reach our utmost goals
of belief, knowledge, and spirituality; to reflect on
God.
This worldly realm is the field of testing and learning
that we may experience God attributes and believe in
them.
Backup Slides-1
The purpose of our creation is obvious: to reach our
utmost goals of belief, knowledge, and spirituality; to
reflect on the universe, humanity, and God, and thus
prove our value as human beings. Fulfilling this ideal
is possible only through systematic thinking and
systematic behavior. Thought will provoke action, and
thereby start a "prosperous cycle." This cycle will
produce more complex cycles, generating between the
heart's spirituality and the brain's knowledge, and
thereby develop ever-more complex ideas and produce
larger projects.
Backup Slides-2
To reach this goal, we must use our willpower, a voice
heard by the All-Powerful One, and develop our
abilities and skills to their furthest extent, thus proving
ourselves to be willful beings. Our duty is to reflect
upon our place in life, our responsibilities, and our
relationship with this vast universe. We should use our
inner thoughts to explore creation's hidden side. As we
do so, we will begin to feel a deeper sense of our
selves, see things differently, witness that events are
not what they seem, and realize that events are trying
to communicate something to us.
Backup Slides-3
The wisdom of it concerns the charging of duties; Adam was sent
charged with such a duty that the unfolding of all mankind's spiritual
progress and the revealing of all mankind's potentialities and man's
essential nature being a comprehensive mirror to all the Divine
Names, are the results of it. If Adam had remained in Paradise, his
rank would have been fixed like that of the angels; man's
potentialities would not have unfolded. In any case, the angels, whose
ranks are unchanging, are numerous, and there is no need for man to
perform that sort of worship. Indeed, since Divine wisdom required a
realm of accountability appropriate to the potentialities of man, who
would traverse infinite degrees, he was expelled from Paradise for his
well-known sin, sin being the requirement of man's nature and
contrary to that of the angels. That is to say, just as Adam being
expelled from Paradise was pure wisdom and pure mercy.