The Peaceful Soul
A peaceful soul uniformly maintains a spiritual relation with God in all situations. No experience, be it ease or hardship, disturbs his peace of mind.
The Quran describes the successful person as a peaceful soul (89:27). This applies to one who lives in a state of peace, dies in a state of peace and in every situation leads a peaceful life.
The Quran gives us two caveats about this: one is that when God grants someone peace, contentment and abundance, he should not become proud but should rather live as a modest person in this world. Another caveat is that when God gives someone less than others in economic terms, he should not suffer from frustration and disillusionment but should rather respond to such a situation with patience and gratitude.
In the life of this world, circumstances are never quite uniform. Sometimes there is affluence. Sometime there is a lack of resources. Sometime there is hardship. Sometimes there is ease. Sometimes situations are favourable and sometimes they are unfavourable. All these different circumstances, whether propitious or unpropitious, are for the purpose of putting a person to the test. One who remains positive in all such situations is successful in the eyes of God, whereas one who responds negatively has failed.
Having a peaceful soul does not always mean being happy. In this world only that person can be happy who is shallow in his thinking. The truth is that no amount of material comforts can satisfy a person of discerning taste because such an individual will find all material comforts below his intellectual level. That is why he can never be satisfied with material things.
In this verse ‘peace’ and ‘contentment’ are words not used in the context of worldly comfort: they are used rather in the context of God. This means that when a person is put to the test by God, whether by affluence or by want, he should always accept things with grace. No experience in relation to God should disturb his peace of mind, whether in ease or in hardship. In all situations his spiritual relation with God should be uniformly maintained.
