Those Working for Allah must know this simple – and self-evident – fact. For, it is an axiom of Working for the Creator of the Worlds. They should know that at all times they are in the safe, secure and unfailing hands of their maker and master, their true employer, God Almighty.
As a result, they should not become overly upset or despondent if at any given time or in any given place things don’t seem to go their way.
If, for example, no one reads their writings. Or pays attention to their message. Or listens to their speeches and recordings. Or attends their functions and events. Or watches their live or taped programmes. Or fills their coffers with gifts and donations. Or comes forward to join their ranks.
Provided one thing is true about what they do and how they do it – and for what reason they do it. Those who claim or consider themselves to be working for Allah. Provided, on every front, they are producing the best material they possibly can. Whether that material is the written or spoken word – or something else.
And so long as they are doing all the right things and doing them the right way. And they are doing them all for the right reasons and proceeding from the right motivations.
And provided, of course, they are doing all this using all the means and methods that are the best and the most right and noble and decent and clean and honourable.
That is all they need to do: those who think or say they are working for Allah.
After that, all they need to do is just sit back and relax. Except for one thing. Except for the fact that this world is not an abode of rest or true peace or joy – for them or for anyone else.
It is not the nature of this world. It simply is not the way this world is built. The billions of variables crisscrossing this world are simply not structured and choreographed that way. Instead, this world is a place of toil and, often, trouble – unremitting toil; ceaseless vigil; and unsuspected trouble.
The abode of rest for a believer is elsewhere. It is Jannat. That is the other world. The Qur’ān most beautifully calls it that: the Other World or the Next World – Al-Aakhirah! Meaning, not This One – not This World but the Next One, the Next World. And the word the Qur’ān uses for This World is Dunya.
Subhanallah, what awesome divine taxonomy this is! What amazing Typology! What a perfect description of reality – both present and future.
And what a perfect and most Natural Dichotomy: This World and the Next World.
The Immediate One and the Later One. The one that is close and the one that follows after. This is a totally divine scheme of things: Dunya and Aakhirah. Which human mind could have designed it?
Allahu Akbar, who but God could have invented it?
Tabaarakallahu ahsanula khaaliqween.
And yet it is, or maybe because of it, because God created the world, as well as the science that both governs and explains that world, it is fair to say: Science, you never had a better day!
Because how perfectly plausible this Natural Dichotomy of Dunya and Aakhirah looks!
So, the Next World is where all the peace and joy and fun is. Not This World.
It is that world, the Next World, that is a perfect foil and a perfect contrast to This World of boundless imperfections, disappointments and heartaches. That is where all the peace and all the joy and all the comfort is for a believer – in Jannat in the Next World.
And those things will be available to the believers without end or limit. For all the good people, no matter who they are and no matter from what background they come. And what perfect sense all this makes. Just think about it: How could any of this possibly have been otherwise?