By Alperen Ozalp

Outline• Introduction

– What is the purpose of life?

• To Know God– Reason, Knowledge and Salvation

• Surrendering to God– To receive and Experience Attributes of God

– Is this life a test?

– Is this life a struggle?

• Learning in Test and Struggle– Forgiveness

Introduction

• Is purpose of life restricted to following the good life according to the requisites of civilization?

• Is the sole aim of the feelings and senses included in

the machine of your life is restricted to

satisfying the low desires of the soul in

this fleeting life?

What is the purpose of life?

• There are two aims:

– 1st to recognize the True Bestower, and

offer God thanks and worship.

– 2nd is to know and experience the Divine Attributes of God in the world, and by experiencing them, to believe in them.

• Through these two basic aims, human

becomes a true human being.

• The wonders of creation, such as the gestation of animals, the movements of the heavenly bodies, atmospheric phenomena, the variety of animal and vegetable life so marvelously well adopted to human needs. All those things are signs for those of insight (3:190)

(5:53-58, 102-103; 10:42-43; 22:45-46; 59:14) (2:166-171; 25:44-46)

He who created the eye of the mosquito

is the one who created the sun.

TO KNOW GOD

A challenge to Reason and Knowledge

• Muslims believe that religion must make sense,

that must be wisdom and rationale behind

everyone of its elements.

While admitting the limitations of human thought, nonetheless

give reason a vital role. The source of this

insistence is undoubtedly Quran.

REASON: Quran asks almost incredulously

• Do they not travel through the land, so that

their hearts may thus learn wisdom? (26:7)

• Do they not travel through the land, so that

their hearts may thus learn wisdom? (22:44)

• Do they not examine the earth? (26:7)

• Do they not look at the sky above them? (50:6)

• (88:17), (56:63), (2:269), (29:42-43), (39:9)

• The very first revelation:

• Read, in the name of your Lord, who created – created human from tiny thing that clings. Read, for your Lord is the Most Bountiful, who taught the use of the pen, taught human what he did not know. (96:1-5)

• The use of pen: KNOWLEDGE

KNOWLEDGE: First command READ

SALVATION is obtained through…

• Quran enjoins us to study critically our behavior and beliefs.

• Salvation is obtained • through searching out and surrendering to GOD.

• We will show them our signs in the farthest reaches and within themselves until it is clear to them that it is the truth. (41:53)

SURRENDERING TO GODBelief in God requires reflection on the creation, together with

knowledge of God and worship of God, and results truthful acts and harmonious behaviors.

• We grow in – Virtue– Wisdom– Justice– Mercy– Forgiveness– Righteousness– Concern and love – Compassion, patience and generosity

To receive and experience God's attributes• We are to pursue them not only to make the world a better place,

When I have fashioned human, breathed

into him of My Spirit. (15:29)

• We grow in our ability to receive and

experience God’s mercy, forgiveness,

compassion, justice, righteousness and love.

We build a strong personal relationship with God

To receive and experience God's attributes

The aims of the Quran are to provide a barrier against the appetites of man thus encouraging him to engage in

higher pursuits, giving satisfaction to his higher aspirations and directing him towards the

achievements of human perfection.” (Beziuzzaman Said Nursi)

Why were we not created with these qualities from the start?

• Quran emphasizes three essential components of human’s moral –spiritual evolution:

– Free will, – ability to choose– Intellect, – learning from one’s choices– Struggle

Why do we have to experience this life?• Quran insists that, in the design of

God, our earthly life is a necessary

stage in human existence:

Those (are believers) who remember

God standing and sitting and lying down, and reflect upon

the creation of the heavens and the earth (saying): “Our

Lord, you did not create all this in vain.” (3:191)

• And We did not create the heaven and the earth and whatever is between them as a game. If we wished to take a pastime, We would have taken it by Ourselves, if We were to do that at all! (21:16-17)

• Do you think that We created you for nothing and that you will not be returned to Us? The true Sovereign is too exalted above that. (23:115-116)

Why do we have to experience this life?

Why do we have to experience this life?

“Man came to this world to be perfected by means of knowledge and supplication. In regard to his nature

and abilities everything is tied to knowledge. And the foundation, source, light, and spirit of all true

knowledge is knowledge of God, and its essence and basis is belief in God.”

(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi)

• We are tested in this world

so that we may become

– clarified,

– purified

– attain virtue and perfection

through our choice (free will)

• We find trials and tests in every aspect of our lives.

Is this life a test?

Is this life a struggle?• To remember the life’s ultimate purpose in difficult times.

• Assuredly we will try you with something of danger and hunger and loss of some worldly goods, and of lives and the fruits of your labor. But give glad tidings to those who are patient in adversity,- those who, when calamity befalls them, say, “Truly, to God we belong and, truly, to Him we shall return.” (2:155-156)

Is this life a struggle? - 2

• You will certainly be tried in

your possessions and

yourselves. (3:186)

• Oh you who believe! Be patient in adversity, and vie with one another in perseverance, and be ever ready, and remain conscious of God, so that you may attain success. (3:200)

LEARNING IN TEST & STRUGGLE

• It is by learning from one’s own mistakes,

– Rising above our mistakes, that we learn and progress to higher levels of goodness.

– Excepting the one who repents and believes and does righteous deeds- then for those, God will change their evil deeds into good deeds, for God is Most Forgiving, Most Merciful. (25:70)

God is responsive to those who seek Him:

• And if my servants call on Me, surely I am near. I heed the call of every caller. So let them with a call unto Me and let them believe in Me, in order that they may be guided aright. (2:186)

• When you approach God by an arm’s length, He approaches you by two, and if you come to Him walking, He comes to you running. (Hadith, saying of Muhammed)

Sin as self destruction, rebellion against one’s true nature.

• Evidence have come to you from your Lord. Then the one who sees does so for his own soul, and the one who is blind, it is upon himself. (6:104)

• We have revealed to you the Book for mankind with the truth. Then the one who is guided, it is for his own soul, the one who strays, his straying is only upon himself. (39:41)

• They did not do injustice to Us, but rather they wronged their own souls. (7:160)

Forgiveness

• O My servants who have sinned against yourselves, never despair of God’s mercy. Surely God forgives all sins. He is the Most forgiving the Most Merciful. (39:53)

• In reality we are doing injustice

and violence to ourselves by

oppressing and robbing ourselves

of our spiritual ascent.

SummaryThe purpose of our creation is to reach our utmost goals

of belief, knowledge, and spirituality; to reflect on God.

This worldly realm is the field of testing and learning that we may experience God attributes and believe in

them.

    

Backup Slides-1The purpose of our creation is obvious: to reach our

utmost goals of belief, knowledge, and spirituality; to reflect on the universe, humanity, and God, and thus

prove our value as human beings. Fulfilling this ideal is possible only through systematic thinking and

systematic behavior. Thought will provoke action, and thereby start a "prosperous cycle." This cycle will

produce more complex cycles, generating between the heart's spirituality and the brain's knowledge, and

thereby develop ever-more complex ideas and produce larger projects.

Backup Slides-2

To reach this goal, we must use our willpower, a voice heard by the All-Powerful One, and develop our

abilities and skills to their furthest extent, thus proving ourselves to be willful beings. Our duty is to reflect upon our place in life, our responsibilities, and our

relationship with this vast universe. We should use our inner thoughts to explore creation's hidden side. As we

do so, we will begin to feel a deeper sense of our selves, see things differently, witness that events are not what

they seem, and realize that events are trying to communicate something to us.

The wisdom of it concerns the charging of duties; Adam was sent charged with such a duty that the unfolding of all mankind's

spiritual progress and the revealing of all mankind's potentialities and man's essential nature being a comprehensive mirror to all the

Divine Names, are the results of it. If Adam had remained in Paradise, his rank would have been fixed like that of the angels;

man's potentialities would not have unfolded. In any case, the angels, whose ranks are unchanging, are numerous, and there is no need for

man to perform that sort of worship. Indeed, since Divine wisdom required a realm of accountability appropriate to the potentialities of

man, who would traverse infinite degrees, he was expelled from Paradise for his well-known sin, sin being the requirement of man's

nature and contrary to that of the angels. That is to say, just as Adam being expelled from Paradise was pure wisdom and pure

mercy.

Backup Slides-3