the purpose of LIFE

What is the Purpose of Life? A Muslim Perspective By Arshad Gamiet Experience IslamWeek Thursday 6th March 2008 Main Lecture Theatre Royal Holloway University of London Dear friends, I greet you with the greeting words of paradise, As-salaamu 'alaykum, warahma tullaahi wabarakaatuh!May the Peace and Mercy and Blessings of God, Allah, be with you! These days, our busy lives have become so frenetic, many of us find no time for contemplation, for reflection, for taking in the Big Picture, and for asking the Big Questions. Our work, study, sport, recreation and family life keeps us constantly engaged in the detail. But we must occasionally step outside this routine. We must reflect and ponder what might seem imponderable. We enjoy learning about the natural world, watching David Attenborough documentaries. We look at the world around us, from the microcosmic to the macrocosmic, from spinning electrons in the realm of quantum physics to those spectacular galaxies viewed through the Hubble telescope. Where did all this come from? How did the cosmos begin? Where will it end, and most compelling of all questions, why? Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? What"s the point of my life? An individual human life, set out on the enormous canvas of space and time, appears to be so infinitesimally small and insignificant. What is my own place in the great cosmic scheme of things? What happens to me when I die? Is death just a big black hole, or is there some form of conscious existence after death? Is this really important? Do I care? Should I care? Or, should I just push these thoughts out of sight and get on with the laundry, do the shopping, or rush to complete those work deadlines that must be met? Now, we can bury those big questions under so many immediate priorities of daily life. But, like a nagging headache, they lurk in the back of our minds, and they resurface, time and again. Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? Science is very good at telling us how things work, but the why part is another matter. Programmes on science and astronomy, and David Attenborough"s award winning natural history films tell us about the fragile, complex relationships that sustain life on our planet. But they don"t tell us why we"re here. That question belongs to the realm of philosophy and faith. 2 "Why" is probably the most difficult question to answer, if we rely entirely on our limited human resources. Here I have a pen and a watch. I know that someone made this pen, and its purpose is to write. Someone made this watch to tell the time. If the pen writes beautifully and the watch tells time accurately, then they fulfil the purpose for which they were made. But what about human beings? What about us? What is the purpose of human life? Some people might well ask, does life have any purpose at all? Are we not simply the product of some chance encounter, a random collision of atoms and molecules? Did we not simply evolve from the primordial ooze, unaided by any higher intelligence, over aeons of time since the big bang 14 billion years ago? Surely there"s no place for God in this equation! Some would argue, there"s no proof that God exists! Life has no higher purpose, they say. These are all musings from ancient books of religion, with no relevance today! You know, when I consider the finely tuned laws of physics and biology that sustain life on our planet, the dozens of chemical and biological processes that are at work, right now, within my own body, keeping me comfortable, healthy and alive, unaided by my conscious will, I find it hard to believe it all began by chance. I find it so hard to believe that a completely random and chaotic beginning could produce so much order, so much beauty and balance without an Intelligent Creator behind it. The mathematical probability of creating so much order, design and harmony from an utterly chaotic and cataclysmic event, just boggles my mind. Sir Fred Hoyle, the noted astronomer who died some years ago, gave this analogy. He said that if you believe the universe was created purely by chance, it"s like saying, a tornado can tear its way through a junkyard, and as it passes, it leaves a complete Boeing 747 assembled and ready for take-off! My friends, if anyone can believe that, they"ll believe anything. For me, it seems much more rational and reasonable to believe that everything around us is the result of a conscious, deliberate act of creation, not simply a cosmic accident. This crucial argument is what separates believers, people of all faiths on one hand, from nonbelievers or atheists on the other. In the final analysis, we have a choice: to believe or not to believe. And, as with every other choice we make in our lives, there are consequences. As long as we accept these consequences, we can believe whatever we like. Let us now address the question:What is Islam"s view on the Purpose of Life? 3 Are we here just because God was bored, so He created us for idle sport, or are we part of a purposeful creation? The Holy Quran tells us, [in Sura Zariyaat, Ch 52:v56] "I have not created Jinn and Mankind except that they should worship me." [Sura Dhariyat 51:v56] In another verse, Allah says that: "Laqad karamna bani Aadam"" "I have truly honoured the Children of Adam, giving them mastery over land and sea, and over a greater part of My creation""[Sura 17:v70] These 2 verses confirm that God created the world for our enjoyment, and He created us to thank Him, to worship Him. The word for faith, Iman in Arabic, also has a strong connotation of gratitude. The word kafir has connotes ingratitude, and describes one who denies God, who denies faith and therefore refuses to thank Him. In another place, Muslims recite in every prayer: "Truly, my prayer, my sacrifice, my life and my death is for God, the Lord of all the worlds. I do not ascribe partners to Him, and I am the first of those who surrender their will to God." [Sura 6:162] At this point, it may be useful for me to explain the precise meaning of terms like Islam, Muslim, and Allah: Islam is derived from Arabic root letters, "seen," "laam" and "meem," equivalent to "S" "L" and "M". Islam literally means "Peace" and it also means "submission" or "willing and joyous surrender" of the human will, to Allah. "Allah" is the Arabic word for "God" in English. Christian Arabs also use the word Allah for God. A "Muslim" is therefore one who submits the whimsical and capricious ego to what pleases Allah. Muslims generally prefer to use the word Allah rather than God. One reason, I guess, is that words can often have very different associations. When we speak of God in English, some people might imagine a wise old man with a long white beard, reaching out so that His finger touches Adam"s finger. No doubt this mental image has been nurtured by Michelangelo"s famous fresco paintings on the Sistine chapel ceiling in Rome. 4 Muslims have no such imagery to associate with Allah. He is infinitely beyond anything we can imagine. And, although we cannot actually see Him with our eyes, we know that He sees us. He says He is closer to us than our jugular veins. No vision can grasp Him, yet His grasp is over all vision. We know Allah by the Asmaa" Ul Husna, the 99 Beautiful Names in the Holy Quran. But, I digress. God, Allah created you and me, and every other creature, to worship Him. What exactly do we mean by "worship?" Here again, words and meanings are important. To some people, worship is a private affair, reserved for synagogues on Saturday or Churches and temples on Sunday. That"s it. Worship in Islam is a wider concept that has formal and informal dimensions. Formal worship is regular prayer, 5 times a day, fasting, charity and pilgrimage to Mecca. Informal worship is any good deed, however small, that is done purely out of love and gratitude to Allah. There must be no ulterior motive, no eagerness to make an impression, no vanity, no desire to massage the ego. Sincerity is the key. In one narration of Prophet Muhammad sws, God, Allah, describes three people whose good deeds will take them to hellfire: A martyr who sought martyrdom to impress people, a scholar who sought knowledge to be admired by people and a philanthropist who gave generously so that people could say, "there goes a generous man." All three incurred Divine displeasure because they lacked sincerity. They were massaging their egos. They did good deeds for the wrong reasons. If we want to earn Allah"s good pleasure, our actions must be absolutely selfless and sincere. This relationship between us, our creator and the natural world, our biosphere, is a crucial one. Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad, a Cambridge scholar, uses a good analogy. He describes Allah as the generous Landlord who gives us the keys to His property. He wants us to enjoy the property on one condition: that we acknowledge who owns it, and that we treat all the other tenants with courtesy and respect. And for rent, He only wants us to say, thank you. That"s all. It really is as simple as that. Yet, for some people, saying thank you to God seems to be the most difficult thing to do. Islam teaches that we human beings are not evil or sinful by nature, but we are forgetful. And it is to this basically good but forgetful and infinitely distractible creature that the Holy Quran, Allah"s revealed Word, is addressed. Indeed, the Arabic word for humankind is insaan, which also implies forgetfulness. The human personality comprises a physical body, a mind and a spirit, a ruuh, in Arabic. This is the breath of Allah that was inspired into us a few weeks before we were born. The body is made of physical matter, or "sounding clay, like pottery; mud, moulded into shape" as the Quran describes it. The soul, the ruuh, is from another dimension. It is timeless and space-less. It was created before time and space began, and it will exist after we die.