What does Allah’s love for His slave gain him if Paradise or Hell is not given in return?

- If that slave has been hit by misfortunes, what is the significance of Allah’s love for him?

Dear Brother / Sister,

- Allah has created a very strong feeling of love and fear in human nature. It is an indisputable reality. The stomach’s being satisfied with food and the biological body’s being able to survive with it are important but satisfying the veins of love and fear is equally important for the spiritual body, mind and heart.

- Those two feelings work automatically. If those two feelings work toward Allah, on the one hand, they will be a means of an important achievement such as being saved from Hell and attaining Paradise, and on the other hand an inner peace arising from the use of those two feelings appropriately will occur.

It is because fearing anyone other than Allah is an incurable misfortune, and loving others is a helpless affliction. No being that we fear other than Allah will pity us, have mercy on us and be able to cure our problems. Similarly, no lover we love other than Allah can return our love. Therefore, when our potential for fear and love turns toward helpless creatures, it only adds to our problems.

- However, when our fear and love turn towards Allah, who introduces Himself as Rahman (All Compassionate) and Rahim (All Merciful) in the Quran, both feelings will provide us with material and immaterial, spiritual and mental benefits. On the one hand, it will enable us to gain the eternal life in Paradise, and on the other hand, our Creator, who has infinite mercy, will return that love and will love us.

Can there be anything better and more peaceful for man, who takes pains and does his best in order to win the love of people who are in high positions in the world, than loving and winning the love of Allah, the only sultan of the universe?

- Let us pay attention to the following information that explains the issue in a nice way:  

“The most radiant happiness and sweetest bounty for jinn and human beings is the love of Allah contained within the knowledge of Allah. They cannot exist without them. The person who knows and loves Allah Almighty may receive endless bounties, happiness, lights, and mysteries. While the one who does not truly know and love him is afflicted spiritually and materially by endless misery, pain, and fears. Even if such an impotent, miserable person owned the whole world, it would be worth nothing for him, for it would seem to him that he was living a fruitless life among the vagrant human race in a wretched world without owner or protector.”

Everyone may understand just how forlorn and baffled is man among the aimless human race in this bewildering fleeting world if he does not know his Owner, if he does not discover his Master. But if he does discover and know Him, he will seek refuge in His mercy and will rely on His power. The desolate world will turn into a place of recreation and pleasure, it will become a place of trade for the hereafter.” (see Mektubat, p. 223)

To sum up: The peace and happiness of man are dependent upon the satisfaction of his material and spiritual needs. Since nobody other than Allah can meet those needs, it is only Allah who can make us happy. In that case, it is our duty to be respectful to Allah and to love Him. It is a fact that we will be happy to the extent that we fulfill our duties.

Questions on Islam