THE HIGHEST GOAL
A team from an Arab country arrived in Mumbai and stayed at a hotel. They needed to hire employees for their country, so they placed an advertisement in English newspapers. A well-educated young man from Delhi saw the ad and sent his documents to them. In response, he received an interview invitation from Mumbai.
The young man headed to the railway station in a rickshaw, accompanied by a friend who was seeing him off. Along the way, a group of unruly boys were playing in the street. As the rickshaw passed by, one of the boys yelled rude words at them, and another threw a stone. This angered the young man’s friend. He wanted to stop the rickshaw, get out, and confront the boys. But the young man grabbed his hand, made him sit down, and said, “Let it go; we don’t have time for this.”
The young man had a clear goal. He wanted to reach the station on time, catch the train, go to Mumbai for the interview, and then earn ten thousand rupees a month in an Arab country. This goal made the insults and stones thrown at him seem trivial. He ignored them and kept going.
This is the same attitude Muslims should adopt on a larger scale. Muslims are those who have made spreading the message of truth their purpose. The high value of their mission makes everything else seem trivial. They hear harsh words, and stones are thrown at them, but they pay no attention to these things. They keep moving forward, saying, “We don’t have time for such petty matters.”
The young man’s goal was to earn ten thousand rupees a month, but for a believer and a preacher, the goal is much higher—it is Paradise. For them, God’s promise is that anyone who spreads His message and endures any hardship or harm for His sake will be rewarded with eternal Paradise in the Hereafter. They understand that patience is the price of Paradise. So how will they gain entry into Paradise in the Hereafter if they do not remain patient in the face of people’s harm?
Turning away from worldly distractions leads to success in this life and the Hereafter.
