What is the purpose of life?
Hi
This is indeed a very important question and the PromisedMessiah 1835-1908 has answered, with reasons from Quran as follows:
Different people, being short-sighted and lacking high resolve, appoint
different purposes for their lives and limit themselves to worldly goals
and ambitions. But the purpose that God Almighty has appointed for
man in His Holy Word is as follows:
I have created men and jinn so that they may know Me and worship
Me (51:57). Thus the true purpose of man’s life is the worship of God,
His understanding and complete devotion to Him.
It is obvious that man is not in a position to appoint the purpose of
his own life, for he does not come into the world of his own accord,
nor will he depart therefrom of his own will. He is a creature and the
One Who created him and invested him with better and higher
faculties than those of all other animals, has also appointed a purpose
for his life. Whether anyone penetrates to it or not, the purpose of
man’s creation without a doubt is the worship and the understanding
of God and complete devotion to Him. At another place God
Almighty has said in the Holy Quran:
The religion which provides true understanding of God and prescribes
His true worship is Islam (3:20). Islam is inherent in man’s nature and
man has been created in accord with Islam. That is the everlasting
faith (30:31). This means that God has desired that man should
devote himself to His worship and obedience and love with all his
faculties. That is why He has bestowed on man all the faculties that
are appropriate for Islam.
These verses have very wide meaning, a part of which we have set
out in the third part of the answer to the first question. Here we wish
to state briefly that the true purpose of the internal and external limbs
and faculties that have been bestowed on man is the understanding of
God and His worship and His love. That is why, despite occupying
himself with diverse projects in this life, man does not find his true
welfare except in God. Having had great wealth, having held high
office, having become a great merchant, having ruled a great kingdom,
having been known as a great philosopher, in the end he departs from
all these involvements with great regret. His heart constantly rebukes
him on his total preoccupation with worldly affairs and his conscience
never approves his cunning and deceit and illicit activities.
An intelligent person can appreciate this problem in this way also, that the
purpose of everything is to be determined by its highest performance
beyond which its faculties cannot operate. For instance, the highest
function of a bullock is ploughing or irrigation or transportation. Its
faculties are not adapted to anything else. Therefore, the purpose of a
bullock’s life are just these three things. It has no power to do anything
else. But when we look into the faculties of man and try to discover
what is their highest reach, we find that he seeks after God, the
Exalted. He desires to become so devoted to God that he should keep
nothing as his own and all that is his should become God’s. He shares
with the other animals his natural urge towards eating, sleeping etc. In
industry some animals are far ahead of him. Indeed the bees extracting
the essence of different types of flowers produce such excellent honey
that man has not yet been able to match them. It is obvious, therefore,
that the highest reach of man’s faculties is to meet God, the Exalted.
Thus the true purpose of his life is that the window of his heart should
open towards God.
alislam.org/library/books/Philosophy-of-Teachings-of-Islam.pdf
Thanks
as often as others. 