Happiness and Faith (hell, prophet, blessing, God, Lord)

[Bishka]

Originally Posted by Cordoba

Salam and Greetings to All:

Real Happiness comes from within. It's a feeling of internal peace and contentment which comes from faith and the love of Allah.

"Where is Happiness?"

- Is it found in material pleasure?
- Is it found in having family, sons and daughters?
- Is it found in experimental science?

While material things do contribute to achieving happiness to a certain extent, real happiness is found from within, "something that man feels in the form of purity of the soul, tranquility of the heart and peace of mind. It is something which springs from within man and is not imported from outside."

A wise wife once told her husband:

"I find my happiness in my faith, and my faith is in my heart, and my heart is controlled by my Lord alone."

A famous saying by one of the early Muslims was:

"We enjoy such happiness that if kings knew about it they would fight us for it".

All the best.

I find happiness in my family, my husband and my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[Cordoba]

I'm glad that faith is part of your happiness Becky.

All the best.

[Cordoba]

Temporary Happiness vs. Real Happiness

For example, the concept of property has a very important place in the lives of people who are ignorant of Allah's religion. All the efforts of these people are directed towards increasing their property and achieving a status which earns them the respect of others. Allah tells us in the Qur'an that a number of things have become passions with such people:

"To mankind the love of worldly appetites is painted in glowing colors: women and children, and heaped-up mounds of gold and silver, and horses with fine markings, and livestock and fertile farmland. All that is merely the enjoyment of the life of this world. The best homecoming is in the presence of Allah." (Surah Al 'Imran: 14)

Property, which has become an end in itself for the community of the ignorant, is for believers only a means to be used for gaining Allah's good pleasure. For this reason believers do not long for the things listed in the above verse and do not make an aim of pursuing them. Increasing their property, enriching themselves or improving their status are never amongst the goals of believers.

They know that everything is a blessing given to them by Allah and that they have to be grateful to Him. They never neglect what is pleasing to Allah for the sake of trivial and temporary worldly gains. If a person uses everything he possesses and all his resources and opportunities to earn Allah's good pleasure, he will receive a fine reward in this world and the next as we are told by Allah in the verse,

"Anyone who acts rightly, male or female, being a believer, We will give them a good life and We will recompense them according to the best of what they did." (Surat an-Nahl: 97)

The difficult times and the troubles they encounter also make people who are ignorant of Allah's religion unhappy because their happiness is entirely bound up with worldly profits and gains, which in times of difficulty are at risk of being lost. The loss of these things due to events completely beyond their grasp, plunges them into great sorrow because of their attachment to them. In this way they completely lose the happiness and joy which acquisitions can bring them. They inevitably sink into depression and hopelessness.

As for the happiness of believers, it takes on a more lasting form because in times of trouble and difficulty they hold to the wisdom which is described in the Qur'an.

Since believers always take into consideration what is pleasing to Allah and apply their intelligence and their consciences exclusively to the task of achieving it, they are never affected negatively by adverse circumstances, as disbelievers are affected. On the contrary, because they hope to gain Allah's good pleasure with sincere and submissive behavior in times of trouble, nothing can lessen their happiness even at such times.

http://www.harunyahya.com/books/faith/happiness/happiness4.php

[Cordoba]

The Happiness and Blessings Brought by Faith

Cheerfulness

Because they believe in Allah and accept His decree, the cheerfulness and joy of the faithful are perpetual. This also manifests itself in their daily lives and is the basic source of believers' character.

The love and devotion believers feel towards Allah and their submission to Him remove all cause for material and spiritual discomfort because for believers there is nothing in their lives which can be classified as "bad." Through the guidance of the Qur'an they are aware that things regarded as "bad" will be turned to their advantage and benefit by Allah.

This ensures that believers always have a cheerfulness and joy which springs from their faith. In surroundings where everybody is unhappy and pessimistic, they never lose any of their cheerfulness because there is nothing which can make them unhappy.

In another verse, Allah tells us that the hearts of believers are content with His remembrance and that the real source of the tranquility and happiness they experience is their faith in Him:

Those who have faith and whose hearts find peace in the remembrance of Allah. Only in the remembrance of Allah can the heart find peace. (5:28)

http://www.harunyahya.com/books/faith/happiness/happiness7.php

[Cordoba]

Strength

The powerful faith of believers increases their happiness and spiritual strength.

Those who always take Allah as their guardian and friend and accept His decree are always cheerful and strong because of the spiritual strength which Allah gives them in return. They never sink into a lazy or lethargic state, because they know it will bring them harm and loss. The spiritual strength they feel inspires them to strive even harder for Allah's approval, making ever more strenuous efforts.

In difficult situations they encounter on the path of Allah, this spiritual strength is also the source of their patience. Therefore, there is no challenge or circumstance which could ever cause them to behave in a way which Allah would not approve. They always opt to be vigorous and active in order to be always at the forefront, setting the best example. Their efforts ensure that they come a little closer to the prospect of the Garden each day. The strength brought by their hope of Allah's approval grows all the time so that they achieve the superior mode of conduct which Allah describes in the Qur'an.

The satisfaction they derive from doing good deeds creates in them a desire to look for further good actions to do. No matter how much effort they expend on this, it never tires them. Effort sincerely made to earn Allah's pleasure only increases their faith and adds to their strength. Allah tells the faithful in the Qur'an to continue their efforts unceasingly:

http://www.harunyahya.com/books/faith/happiness/happiness7.php

[Cordoba]

Happiness and Tranquility

Happiness is a great blessing both in this world and the next which Allah grants His pious followers for their sincere belief and devotion.

The only source of the happiness and tranquility of believers is their faith. Allah makes sincere believers feel happiness and tranquility as a blessing in their hearts. What believers experience is not a happiness dependent on circumstances but the spiritual happiness which their faith brings them.

http://www.harunyahya.com/books/faith/happiness/happiness9.php

[Cordoba]

Islam and Spiritual Peacefulness

It has become a custom that people constantly complain regarding their ill fortune and fate and are never satisfied with their life. We all see life as a restless sea, full of wonders and never stable. However nobody can escape the violent waves on the surface of this deep ocean.

Freud said: “The primitive man satisfied his desires in a better way than the civilized man. His life was free from mental anxieties and cares, and he did not suffer from psychic ailments. But since the advent of civilization, industry and urbanization, man came to suffer from serious mental illnesses.”

Pleasure and pain in this world, like positive and negative forces in nature, together perform their function everywhere. Opposed to joy and delight are grief and sadness and opposed to youth and vitality are old age and weakness. Everyone who sets out on this sea is bound to be drenched by its waters and encounter in the course of his life a series of unpleasant and painful events: failure, privation, the death of dear ones and many other afflictions of the kind.

The level and severity of hardships and calamities, it is true, is different in every age, but the universal principle of hardship and suffering is intertwined with man's life in all its stages.

As Allah says in the Holy Qur’an: “Indeed We have created man in the cradle of trouble and suffering.” (90:4)

The Definite Role of Faith in Spiritual Peace:

A study of the history of human progress has proved that the supports of man's civilization and culture have always rested on the shoulders of those for whom the power of real faith had made enabled them to put up with the heavy burden of hardship and bare the pain whose negative effects were neutralized by the faith present in their strong hearts.

Psychologists asserted that the power of faith is as effective as nothing else. In the cure of psychic diseases and creation of confidence and inner peace. In cases where severe hardships shatter man's personality and divest him of his hope and will power, trust in God produces a profound and undeniable effect in a defeated soul. Failure, adversity, and defeat can never create a storm in the pure hearts of godly men and make them suffer despair and loss of self-assurance and self-respect.

The faith in God, is a medicine for any spiritual ills, it helps regulate psychic urges which are themselves the mainspring of man's spiritual afflictions. The faith in God gives a visage of perfect beauty to life, because when one has the conviction that everything does not come to an end with this life it creates an inner peace and makes him pass through the entire course of life with steadiness, strength, and moderation.

Qualities like greed and avarice, which are one of the reasons for anxiety, are moderated as a result of faith in God. The hope of great rewards and the fear of severe punishments make man refrain from rapacity and avoid unreasonable and uncontrolled passion for material things, glitter and ostentation. Thus, a desirable and serene equilibrium worthy of man's humanity is brought about within his soul.

Similarly, faith in the Day of Judgement and the hereafter removes the intolerable strain induced by the idea of absolute annihilation and extinction from the human spirit, for the person with such a faith is convinced that at the threshold of death the door to another world will open in front of him and he will enter an eternal life and its everlasting bounties that cannot be compared with the joys of this world. This faith results in eliminating another agent of mental anxiety which is the anguish of absolute nonexistence.

Faith not only cures anguish and anxiety from the human heart, it also protect it from being overwhelmed by agitation and agony.

Allah says in the Qur’an:

“If you have faith, do not yield to fear and sorrow, for you have an upper hand over the others on account of this asset of faith.” (3:139)

Allah also says:

...In God's remembrance and reliance upon Him are at rest the hearts of those who have faith and do righteous deeds. (13:28)

And in another verse of the Qur’an:

“It is He Who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the faithful...” (48:4)

The Qur'an views steadiness and peacefulness to be the characteristics of those whose hearts are rich with faith:

Allah says:

“Mental peace and security are qualities of those who have faith and who have not drawn a veil of wrongdoing over their faith.” (6:82)

In another verse, Allah says:

“Lo, fear and sorrow do not affect the friend of God”. Qur’an (10:62)

In a sermon that shows the various benefits of remembering Allah, Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, may Allah be pleased with him, says:

God, the Exalted, has made His remembrance the light and burnish of the hearts. It is by the means of His remembrance that the hearts recover their hearing after being deaf, regain their sight after being blind, and become soft and tractable after being savage and rebellious.”

The state of people possessing faith cannot in any way be compared to the condition of materialistic and irreligious persons in encounter with life's vicissitudes and its bitter experiences, for the two are as apart as the earth and the sky.

Real happiness and spiritual peace can be found in submitting to the commands of Allah; the Creator and the Sustainer of this world.

http://www.islamonline.com/cgi-bin/news_service/spot_full_story.asp?service_id=741

[Cordoba]

Means of Attaining Happiness

High moral standards that inspire one to do good for others:

Man is a social being who needs to interact with beings of his own kind. It is not possible for him to exist independently of others in every aspect of his life.

Interacting with others is unavoidable, and people differ greatly in their physical and mental peculiarities. Thus, it is unavoidable that displeasing things will happen between people that can cause them sorrow and distress. If a person cannot deal with these things in an honorable manner, then his interaction with others – which in and of itself is unavoidable – will be a great source of distress and misery for his life. For this reason, Islam emphasizes morality and the development of moral character.

Allah says: "Help one another in virtue and piety, and do not help one another in sin and transgression".

http://www.islamtoday.com/discover_islam.cfm?cat_id=6&sub_cat_id=54