LINGERING DOUBTS

LINGERING DOUBTS reserved only for those who busy themselves with their own affairs instead of serving His cause—while those who dedicate themselves to God’s work are undeserving of His bounty. Or perhaps your mind is so shaped by the image of monks and ascetics that you regard piety and monasticism as inseparable. That is why a devout believer who eats and drinks in the normal way appears to you as an anomaly.” Consider this: you understand that a longing for something can only develop in the heart of someone who has endured hardship for it—at least from a political and revolutionary point of view. However, you did not see the same thing from another perspective: that the desire for the Hereafter can only grow in the heart of someone who has sacrificed worldly pleasures for it. To adopt a revolutionary mindset, it was necessary to endure hardship for the revolution’s sake. But to adopt the longing for the Hereafter, you didn’t feel the same need—that a person must go through trials endured for the sake of the next life. What was regarded as so important for worldly goals became, in the case of the Hereafter, a subject of ridicule. 3. A person might have such sharp political instincts as “blessings,” for a true believer’s real blessings are God and His paradise (Quran, 20:131).