matters and businesses are lawful and cannot be self-proscribed or added to a forbidden list. This world has been made for human utilization. Therefore, it is man’s duty to use and use well. However, during this process of consumption, he must make a distinction between good and bad usage, between manners appropriate and inappropriate, between the pure and the impure. For instance, the eyes have been given for vision, the ears for hearing, and the intellect for good judgement. If the individual were to refrain from using his mind or any part of his body, or were to use it improperly, then there would be no difference between him and a lower animal.
The Qur’ān’s directives about leading life are as follows:
Surely Allah’s promise is true. So let the life of this world not beguile you, nor let the Deluder delude you about Allah.
[Luqmān 31: 33]
The wrong-doers kept pursuing the ease and comfort which had been conferred upon them, thus losing themselves in sinfulness.
[Hūd 11: 116]
(O Prophet), propound to them the parable of the present life: it is like the vegetation of the earth which flourished luxuriantly when it mingled with the water that We sent down from the sky, but after that the same vegetation turned into stubble which the winds blew about. Allah alone has the power over all things. Wealth and children are an adornment of the life of the world. But the deeds of lasting righteousness are the best in the sight of your Lord in reward, and far better a source of hope.
[al-Kahf 18: 45-46]
Believers, let your possessions and your offspring not make you negligent of Allah’s remembrance. For whoever does that, they will be the losers.
[al-Munāfiqūn 63: 9]
It is not your riches nor your children that make you near-stationed to Us, except for him who has faith and acts righteously.
[Saba’ 34: 37]
Know well that the life of this world is merely sport and diversion and adornment and an object of your boasting with one another, and a rivalry in the multiplication of riches and children. Its likeness is that of rain: when it produces vegetation it delights the tillers. But then it withers and you see it turn yellow, and then it crumbles away.
[al-Ḥadīd 57: 20]
What, you build a monument on every hill merely for fun, and erect huge palaces as though you will live forever.
[al-Shuʿarā’ 26: 128-29]
Do you believe that you will be left here to live securely in the present state, amidst gardens and springs, and cornfields and date-palms laden with juicy fruits? You hew dwellings in mountains and exult in that.
[al-Shuʿarā’ 26: 146-49]
Wherever you might be, death will overtake you even though you be in massive towers.
[al-Nisā’ 4: 78]
Every being shall taste death, then it is to Us that you shall be sent back.
[al-ʿAnkabūt 29: 57]
Did you imagine that We created you without any purpose, and that you will not be brought back to Us?”
[al-Mu’minūn 23: 115]
Thus it is clear how the Qur’ān sees the world and states that it has been created for human use – and that it is to be used well. Now, we see the other side of the picture being presented. It is made abundantly clear that man has not been created to be used up and devoured by the world. Indeed, man is not supposed to lose himself in the world. Deceived by the lure of the world, human beings cannot fool themselves into believing that they are here to stay eternally. It must be remembered – and remembered very clearly – that all this material wealth and means of pomp and glory are temporary, fleeting pleasures. Everything must end in ‘death’ and like man himself all matter will be united with the ‘dust’. In this impermanent universe, if anything is to outlive the material milieu it can only be good actions, beauty of heart and soul, and piety of thought and action.
Responsibility and Accountability for Actions
The Qur’ān alerts man thus:
The Hour of Resurrection is coming. I have willed to keep the time of its coming hidden so that everyone may be recompensed in accordance with his effort.
[Ṭā Hā 20: 15]
Will you be recompensed for aught other than what you do?
[al-Naml 27: 90]
And that man shall have nothing but what he has striven for, and that (the result of) his striving shall soon be seen, and that he shall then be fully recompensed, and that the final end is with your Lord.
[al-Najm 53: 39-42]
Whoever lived in this world as blind shall live as blind in the Life to Come; rather, he will be even farther astray than if he were (just) blind.
[Banī Isrā’īl 17: 72]
Whatever good deeds you send forth for your own good, you will find them with Allah. Surely Allah sees all that you do.
[al-Baqarah 2: 110]
And have fear of the Day when you shall return to Allah, and every human being shall be fully repaid for whatever (good or evil) he has done, and none shall be wronged.
[al-Baqarah 2: 281]
The Day is approaching when every soul shall find itself confronted with whatever good it has done and whatever evil it has wrought.
[Āl ʿImrān 3: 30]
The weighing on that Day will be the true weighing: O those whose scales are heavy will prosper, and those whose scales are light will be the losers, for they are the ones who have been iniquitous to Our signs.
[al-Aʿrāf 7: 8-9]
So, whoever does an atom’s weight of good shall see it; and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil shall see it.
[al-Zilzāl 99: 7-8]
Their Lord answered the prayer thus: ‘I will not suffer the work of any of you, whether male or female, to go to waste’
[Āl ʿImrān 3: 195]
And spend of what Allah has granted you by way of sustenance before death should come to any of you and he should say: ‘Lord, why did You not defer my return for a while so that I might give alms and be among the righteous?’ But when a person’s term comes to an end, Allah never grants any respite.
[al-Munāfiqūn 63: 10-11]
Would that you could see
