Without a doubt the most important question is: WHY ARE WE HERE?
Other big questions are:
How do we conform to that purpose?
And what happens after we
die?
There are many faith practices and religions that answer these
questions.
All are useful (the Bible, the Torah, and the Quran) but the Quran being
the most recent provides the clearest and the most detailed answers.
Say, "We believe in God and in what was brought down to us, and in what
was brought down to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob and the Patriarchs,
and in what was given to Moses and Jesus, and what was given to the
prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction among any of them and
to Him we are submitters."
[Quran 2:136]
According to the Quran, the Bible and the Torah this life is a test - a
test devised by God to determine which of us will submit to the path of
God and choose good, and which of us will choose to follow the path of
evil.
Simply stated: there is an afterlife and what we do here matters.
According to our sacred Books this life has a purpose. That purpose is
to pass a test devised by God to see which ones of us will serve Him and
which ones of us will choose otherwise. This purpose for this life can
be found throughout the Quran and the Bible. Here are some of the
relevant verses:
Quran 51:56
I did not create the jinns and the humans except to worship Me
alone.
1 Corinthians 10:31
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the
glory of God.
Quran 47:31
We will certainly put you to the test, in order to distinguish those
among you who strive, and steadfastly persevere. We must expose your
true qualities.
Isaiah 43:7
everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I
formed and made.
Quran 21:35
Every person will taste death, after we put you to the test through
adversity and prosperity, then to us you ultimately return.
Quran 18:7
We have adorned everything on earth, in order to test them, and thus
distinguish those among them who work righteousness.
Matthew 5:14-16
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be
hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a
lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your
light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and
glorify your Father in heaven.
Quran 10:14
Then we made you inheritors of the earth after them, to see how you
will do.
Quran 2:155
We will surely test you through some fear, hunger, and loss of money,
lives, and crops. Give good news to the steadfast.
Quran 10:47
To each community, a messenger. After their messenger comes, they are
judged equitably, without the least injustice.
Quran 8:28
You should know that your money and your children are a test, and
that God possesses a great recompense.
Thanks to http://www.masjidtucson.org/ for permission to use Rashid
Kalifa's translation of the Holy Quran.
According to our sacred Books the purpose of this life is to worship God
alone. Worship has many forms: prayer, doing good deeds, obeying God,
being charitable, trusting God, and many others.
The following verses from the Quran and the Bible detail a few of the
ways to worship God. We begin with worship through obedience.
Deuteronomy 5:6-21 Ten Commandments
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow
down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and
fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to
thousands[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain,
for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your
God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you
shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male
servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of
your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your
male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You
shall remember that you were a slave[c] in the land of Egypt, and the
Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep
the Sabbath day.
Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God
commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well
with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
And you shall not commit adultery.
And you shall not steal.
And you shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor.
And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And you
shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male
servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything
that is your neighbor's.
The Amramites 3:51-
God is my Lord and your Lord; you shall worship Him alone. This is the
right path.
Matthew 22:37-38-
Jesus declared, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as
yourself.'
Deuteronomy 6:5-
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your strength.
Luqmaan 31:17-19-
O my son, you shall observe the Contact Prayers. You shall advocate
righteousness and forbid evil, and remain steadfast in the face of
adversity.
Quran The Cow [2:177]-
Piety is not in turning your faces towards the east and the west.
Rather, the pious is the one who believes in God, the Last Day, the
Angels, the Scripture and the Prophets, and who gives away money,
despite his love for it, to the relatives, the orphans, the needy, the
homeless, the beggars and to free slaves, and who observes the daily
prayers and gives the obligitary chairity, and the ones who honour
their pledge whenever they make a pledge, and the ones who are patient
through misery, hardship and at times of conflict. These are the ones
who have been truthful and these are the reverent ones.
Quran The Opener [1:5]-You alone we worship and You alone we ask for help.
Quran The Repentance [9:51]-
Say, 'Nothing will befall us except what God has decreed for us. He is
our Master. In God, the believers should trust.'
Matthew 19:21 and Luke 14:33-
Jesus said to him,'If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have,
and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come,
follow me.' (Matthew 19:21) So therefore whoever of you who does not
renounce all that he has, he can not be my disciple. (Luke
14:33)
John 14:15 If you love Me, keep My commandments.
Quran The Cow (Al-Baqarah [2:277]-
Those who believe, and do good deeds, and observe the Salat, and give
the Zakat, they will have their reward with their Lord. No fear will
there be concerning them, nor will they grieve.
Quran The Family Of Imran [3:133]-
And hasten in pursuit of forgiveness from your Lord and a Paradise
whose width encompasses the heavens and the earth; it has been
prepared for the reverent.
Thanks to http://www.masjidtucson.org/ for permission to use Rashid
Kalifa's translation of the Quran.
Afterlife
The Quran and the Bible are specific when it comes to the consequences
of worshiping God and obeying His commands. The following verses from
the Quran detail these consequences in both this life and the next life.
Quran 9:71-72
The believing men and women are allies of one another. They advocate
righteousness and forbid evil, they observe the Contact Prayers and
give the obligatory charity, and they obey God and His messenger.
These will be showered by God's mercy. God is Almighty, Most Wise.
God promises the believing men and the believing women gardens with
flowing streams, wherein they abide forever, and magnificent mansions
in the gardens of Eden. And God's blessings and approval are even
greater. This is the greatest triumph.
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also
in me. My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I
have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if
I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be
with me that you also may be where I am.
Quran 13:18
Those who respond to their Lord deserve the good rewards. As for those
who failed to respond to Him, if they possessed everything on earth -
even twice as much - they would readily give it up as ransom. They
have incurred the worst reckoning, and their final abode is Hell; what
a miserable destiny.
Matthew 7:21
Not everyone who keeps saying to me, 'Lord, Lord', will get into the
kingdom from heaven, but only the person who keeps doing the will of
my Father in heaven.
Thanks to http://www.masjidtucson.org/ for permission to use Rashid
Kalifa's translation of the Quran.
