FOREWORD

Despite having complete freedom, man submits to God of his own free will, while the rest of the universe has submitted to God out of compulsion. Paradise is the reward for this conscious surrender. T he Quran tells us that the jinns and mankind were created to worship God. (51: 56) According to the interpretation of Mujahid Tabii, a disciple of Abdullah ibn Abbas, a senior Companion of the Prophet, worship in this verse means the realization of God (Tafsir Al-Qurtubi, Vol. 17, p. 55). There is nothing mysterious about this realization. It is, in fact, the realization of God and His creation plan. It means that man becomes unique in his intellectual ability to discover his Creator, his Lord. Then he should understand the creation plan of the Creator and make himself deserving of God’s highest blessing, that is Paradise. According to a verse of the Quran, God “created death and life so that He might test you” (67:2). The present world is, therefore, a selection ground. Here man is