Allah is ever faithful in His promise. In my Fajr reflections recently, I ponder over several aayats of the Qur’an where Allah haz wa jal spoke to believers on certain actions of life, where He gave certain mandates, instructions, warnings, promises and assurances with a view to ensuring that the believer remains steadfast, conscious, ever in His presence, relying on Him and ultimately attaining His pleasure, for the Pleasure of Allah is the greatest goal a believer can aspire. When Allah is pleased with His servant, his affairs become easy.
I take my inspiration today from the Surah of the Believers, Al, Muminun, Quran Chapter 23 and I encourage every muslim to reflect on the contents of the early verses of that part of the Quran. They are verses that breathe with certainty, finality and assurance from Allah, assurance of success. But there are also conditions attached to success. From these verses, you see the Almighty linking success to Salaat, zakat, observance of trust (integrity), chastity, piety, and self-discipline.
In the reckoning of Islam, all these are good deeds, borne out of personal striving, striving against the base self, the ego. For it is the reign of the Ego in Man that fires his ambition. And when the ego and ambition in man rule, most often negatively, he is unable to meet, or he compromises on these virtuous prescriptions of success. So, the corollary to man’s success is the conquest of the Ego and human ambition. The path of success is shown man when he abandons his own self-defined path and follows the pathway of Allah, the path of total submission and full compliance with the mandates of Allah.
Allah in his infinite mercy declared that whosoever does good, whether a male or a female, and he is a mumin, a believer, such would assuredly be granted a life that is pure and good, HAYYATAN Toyyiban. In several other parts of the Quran, Allah promises the believer victory, authority (dominion of the earth), heritage, abundance of wealth and ultimately His pleasure, RIDWANULLAH AKBAR. The pleasure of Allah is the greatest.