Ups and Downs in Life
A contented soul is one who bows before God and thanks Him on receiving something, and expresses his humility when something is taken away from him.
Chapter 89 of the Quran states: “As for man, when his Lord tests him, through honour and blessings, he says, ‘My Lord has honoured me,’ but when He tests him by straitening his means of livelihood, he says, ‘My Lord has disgraced me.’ No indeed, but you show no kindness to the orphan, nor do you urge one another to feed the poor, and you greedily devour the inheritance of the weak, and you have a love of wealth which can never be satisfied. No indeed! When the earth is crushed and ground to dust, when your Lord comes down with the angels, rank upon rank, and Hell is made to appear on that Day, then man will be mindful, but what will being mindful then avail him? He will say, ‘Oh, would that I had provided beforehand for my life!’ On that Day no one will punish as He punishes, and none can bind with bonds like His! [But to the righteous, God will say], ‘O soul at peace, return to your Lord, well-pleased, well-pleasing. Join My servants. Enter My Paradise.” (89:15-30)
Every person passes through two sets of circumstances in the world—sometimes finding or receiving things and sometimes losing them. Both eventualities, meant to gauge human reactions to different conditions, are for the purpose of putting one to the test. If the individual starts to boast when he receives something and acts negatively when things are taken away from him, he has failed the test.
The other type of person is one who would bow down before God and thank Him when he received something, and when things were taken away from him, he would once again bow down before God and express his humility. It is the second type of person who has been called the contented soul (an-nafs al-mutmainnah).
In this world, whatever we receive in terms of wealth or in any other forms, serves the purpose of test. They are not desirable in themselves but are rather a means to achieve another purpose. The purpose is that one should make use of these things in such a way that they become a means of salvation in one’s future eternal life.
