SEEKER OF PARADISE
Necessary Traits

IN a Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, the following words have been mentioned for the seeker of Paradise: I did not see anything like Paradise, whose seeker is asleep. (Sunan al-Tirmidhi) From this statement, we realize that Paradise is for one whose entire personality gets bathed in the intense desire for Paradise, who discovers the reality of Paradise to such an extent that Paradise is personified in his longings, who sleeps and wakes up in remembrance of Paradise. Paradise is for one who vexes himself with these questions: if God did not grant him Paradise, what would happen to him? If he is deprived of Paradise in the Hereafter, how much worse it will be for him? What a tragedy life will be for him?

The seeker of Paradise is one who begins to see Paradise without seeing it, one who becomes a real seeker of Paradise before entering it. The image of the seeker of Paradise is described in a verse of the Quran as follows: He will admit them into the Garden He has already made known to them. (47: 6) In this verse, the knowledge of Paradise is attributed to God, but it is the attribute of a believer. The believer is the one who discovers Paradise in such a way that Paradise becomes his intense longing. This does not mean that people have been told in advance what Paradise is. Rather, it means that the believer increases his knowledge of Paradise to such an extent that Paradise becomes a known thing to him in advance.

The fact is that Paradise is a desirable target, which, by its very nature, is a counterpart to the seeker of Paradise. It is by nature a known abode of man as if Paradise is made for man, and man for Paradise. But the mere desire for Paradise is not enough to prove oneself worthy of entering Paradise; one is required to make the necessary preparations.