| 25 October 2009
Mushafiq Sultan Parray
Human beings are different from the rest of the creatures around them in the sense that they have a mind that asks questions. What are the most important questions that we need to seek answers to first and foremost? This article is an attempt to remind ourselves of those fundamental questions.
If we look around we find that all the things we come across in our daily lives have a certain purpose. There is not a thing which does not have a purpose. Human beings have discovered the purpose of the majority of things out there, and how they affect our lives. And that is the point, it is we who discover the purpose of things around us and not vice versa. There is one thing that makes us different from the rest of the objects around us, a mind that asks questions.
Whenever we make a thing, we make it with a purpose. This whole universe is proof in its own existence that it has been created. The intricate balances that exist between various objects and in the mechanisms governing microscopic cells, are all pointing to the fact that they owe their existence to a Master Creator. Having accepted the fact that we have a Creator, the natural question that comes to our mind is ’What is the purpose of my creation?”
This is the most important question that a conscious human needs to find an answer to. However, we find that majority of the humans are not bothered about this question. They spend all their energies in making money, building a house, improving their standard of living and falsely make these activities as their purpose in life. The reality is that making money, building a house and improving our standard of living are necessities and not the purpose.
The right approach is that we seek to know what is the purpose our Creator has created us with. When we accepted the fact that we have a Creator we have the need to know what is the purpose He created us with. When we look around we find that little insects have a need to eat food, and something is provided for them. Bigger animals also have a need to eat, and things are provided for them. We come all the way up the scale to human beings. We also have a need to eat, breathe and drink to survive physically. Our Creator who created us has already provided us with things necessary for our physical survival. But, we also have a need to know. We ask questions and seek answers. Then surely He must have provided us with answers to these questions also. Where is the providence for the fundamental and most important questions we ask?
Almighty God has not left us wandering. In fact, He has communicated to us from time to time in order to tell us the purpose of our creation and what He expects from us. That is the role of Revelation. Throughout the ages past, whenever humankind deviated from the path set out by their Creator, The Almighty communicated His messages to His Chosen Prophets, who in turn communicated the same to us. They provided solid evidence that Almighty God is communicating with them and what He wants us to do. Our duty is that we adhere to that message of The Almighty and we will be achieving our true purpose, the same purpose that He communicated to us. Almighty God says in the Quran, which is His final message to us “And I created jinn and mankind only that they might worship Me. ( Qur’an 51:56) . At various places in the Qur’an, it is mentioned with clarity that the Almighty sent His messengers to inform people of this very reality.
It is our duty to ponder on these most important questions and free ourselves from the clutches of the materialistic mindset to make our spiritual personality dominant. Then we can frame our whole life in the light of that purpose that will enable us to achieve salvation.
May Allah make the path easy for us. Aameen