In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate
"May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon You"
Bismillah Walhamdulillah Was Salaatu Was Salaam 'ala Rasulillah
As-Salaam Alaykum Wa-Rahmatullahi Wa-Barakaatuh
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PURPOSE OF LIFE
The most important question in life is ‘Why are we here?’
Well, why are we here? To amass fame and fortune? To make music and babies? To be the richest man or woman in the graveyard ?
No, there must be more to life than that, so let’s think about this. To begin with, look around you. Unless you live in a cave, you are surrounded by things we humans have made with our own hands. Now, why did we make those things? The answer, of course, is that we make things to perform some specific function for us. In short, we make things to serve us. So by extension, why did God make us, if not to serve Him?
If we acknowledge our Creator, and that He created humankind to serve Him, the next question is, “How? How do we serve Him?” No doubt, this question is best answered by the One who made us. If He created us to serve Him, then He expects us to function in a particular manner, if we are to achieve our purpose. But how can we know what that manner is? How can we know what God expects from us?
Well, consider this: God gave us light, by which we can find our way. Even at night, we have the moon for light and the stars for navigation. God gave other animals guidance systems best suited for their conditions and needs. Migrating birds can navigate, even on overcast days, by how light is polarized as it passes through the clouds. Whales migrate by “reading” the Earth’s magnetic fields. Salmon return from the open ocean to spawn at the exact spot of their birth by smell, if that can be imagined. Fish sense distant movements through pressure receptors that line their bodies. Bats and blind river dolphins “see” by sonar. Certain marine organisms (the electric eel being a high-voltage example) generate and “read” magnetic fields, allowing them to “see” in muddy waters, or in the blackness of ocean depths. Insects communicate by pheromones. Plants sense sunlight and grow towards it (phototrophism); their roots sense gravity and grow into the earth (geotrophism). In short, God has gifted every element of His creation with guidance. Can we seriously believe he would not give us guidance on the one most important aspect of our existence, namely our raison d’etre our reason for being? That he would not give us the tools by which to achieve salvation?
So what does the Creator, God, tell us about our purpose in life? God states in the Quran that He created the human to be His trustee on earth. Mankind’s basic trust, our responsibility, is to believe in and worship God:
And I did not create the jinn and humankind except to worship Me… [Quran 51:56-58]