“Whatever you have been given is a provision for the life of this world and its glitter. But that which is with Allah is better and more enduring. Do you not use your intellect? Now, he to whom We have promised a good which is going to obtain – can he be like him whom We have given the good things of this life, but who will be brought up for punishment on the Day of Judgement?”
(Al Qur’ān – 28:60-61)
The life of this world – which is of limited duration and lasts for just a few years – is merely a temporary halt in man’s total journey. The real life is the one to come; that is the Ever-lasting life. No matter how much wealth one accumulates, no matter how luxurious one’s worldly life is, it is all transient. Man leaves all his possessions behind when he departs from this world, and obviously everyone has to so depart. If the prosperity and comfort of this temporary life is achieved by courting never-ending affliction and misery in the Next-life, then no intelligent person would entertain such a bargain. Anyone with even elementary common sense would opt for the hardships of a few years, if that is necessary, in order to earn eternal prosperity in the Next Life.
The religion prescribed by God, however, doesn’t require man to contemptuously spurn the provisions of this life. It only requires that the Next Life be preferred to the life of this world, for the life of this world will vanish while the Hereafter will endure forever.