Purpose: Reason for Being
“Do you think that We (God) have created you in play (purposelessly), and that you will not be brought back to Us?”
(Qur’an 23:115)
- Within every human is an innate desire for ultimate meaning and purpose. It cannot be escaped, as it goes to the root of human nature. Deep inside, humans want their lives to count for something much more than mere existence.
- Goals along this life’s journey are temporary, changing, and individualistic; they vary from one person to another and change according to the stage of life and the circumstances being experienced. Sometimes it is career, sometimes wealth, sometimes relationships. But none of these, alone, is original, enduring, or satisfying in itself. Without an intended reason for existence, the pursuit of these or any other of life’s goals cannot be meaningful.
- Any personal goals, in a random world with no clear origin and no ultimate meaning, would essentially lose their significance and become absurd; just motion without destination, events without reason, and efforts without a particular higher end in sight.
- The nothingness at both ends of a human’s life – birth and death – would inevitably reduce any attempts in between to a pointless struggle to find meaning and purpose in the void.
- Only by having one, permanent, all-comprehensive purpose, which makes sense and directs all the various objectives and actions of life, can humans gain the willpower to live on, achieve aims, and navigate through the vicissitudes of life.
- God Almighty informs in His Noble Book that He has not created His creation in vain or for play and mere amusement, without use or significance, or reward and punishment. Indeed, He created this entire universe in the most perfect form, according to a precise system and law that moves it in a specific direction towards a set aim, and it all stands as a testament to His Power as the Creator and Giver and Sustainer of life. In numerous places in the Qur'an, God also asserts the sanctity of life, the seriousness of its purpose, and the seriousness of the role of the human being in it.
“We (God) created not the heavens, the earth, and all between them, merely in (idle) sport. We created them not except for just ends, but most of them do not know.”
(Qur’an 44:38-39)
“God created the heavens and earth in truth and so that every soul may be recompensed for what it has earned, and they will not be wronged.”
(Qur’an 45:22)