The Goal of Life

I only created mankind and the jinn that they might worship Me. I demand no livelihood of them, nor do I ask that they should feed Me.

God alone is the Munificent Giver, the Mighty One, the Invincible. The lot of the wrongdoers will be like that of their predecessors. Let them not challenge Me to hurry it on. Woe then to the unbelievers when the threatened day arrives!

(The Quran 51:56-60)

God has power of His own in all matters. However, He has created angels in order to manage His vast empire. But the situation of human beings is different. They have not been created to fulfill any personal or managerial requirement of God. Their sole purpose is the worship of God.

Worship means surrendering before the Almighty in the full sense of the word. According to Ibn Jurayh worship, in essence, is realization (ma’rifah) of God (Ibn Kathir, Tafsir). It is desired of man that he should make his own discovery of God. He should recognize God although He is invisible. The life that takes shape as a result of this realization is called servitude of God.

When a pot floating in the river fills to the brim, it sinks. Similarly, when man’s span of action is completed, death comes unannounced. One who reforms himself before his pot is full saves himself. One who remains oblivious till his last day of the necessity to reform; is doomed to eternal destruction. 

If the oppressors are given a long rope, it does not mean that they have been left scot-free. It only means that it is not the sunnah (way) of God to seize them in haste.

God has not created man for the completion of His Being. Rather man has been given this opportunity to prove himself a true servant of God in this world of trial in order that he may be deserving of the blessings of God for all eternity.