To interpret someone’s choices in the best way – it is one way that one “prays” for them i.e. asks God to give them what is best for them.
How shall i interpret someone’s choice to be unhappy, bored and disappointed with this world, especially as the result of old age, illness, profound loss of loved ones or bodily abilities or one or all of these and other reasons?
Shall I accuse such a person of being ungrateful to God, someone who does not have strong faith, someone who is not focusing on the “blessings” they still have and instead focusing on what they have lost or might lose in the future? Should I say that they should be patient (satisfied?) with these disappointments by thinking about the good things God will give them in the future as a reward for their present suffering? Such a God makes me suffer (its real) and promises (how do I know the promises are real? and on top of suffering, i am now to be happy about something i am not certain about and I can’t even complain about lest I lose his promsied reward and be severely punished (eternally in fire!) instead! – what a burden to carry for me!). what a terrofying thing to be a human being. What else could I do? How else could i understand another person’s disappointments and complaints without speculating about their intentions and level of faith etc?
Here is one option. I need to be sure, by looking within myself, that my soul is not satisfied with whatever is limited and subject to decline. I must apply this realization to the souls of others. The souls of all human beings, whether they are aware or not, are made for perfection and the soul loves unending, non-declining sustenance and beauty.
How do I want the best for a person who is complaining about life in this world? I can think of them as being honest to themselves – their soul, like mine, cries out for perfection that the transient world does not provide. Their unhappiness looks to a realm, seeks a realm, asks for a realm that is perfect and lasting. And to understand them thus is to ask God to accept their cries and give them what they seek.
There remains the possibility that this person could see the beauties and perfections (limited and passing and yet real and perceived by the soul) as signs of the same (but in higher form) to come later. They will still feel the pain and disappointment of what is limited and passing (e.g. the passing of a robust appetite for food with old age and thus the limited joy of desiring food and eating) but they could “read” this disappointment as a sign that their maker wants for them unlimited and perfect joy, that this world is not the highest realm. They could do this but not everyone gets there! And I should not want for them (that they see their disappointment as a sign) what I do not do myself – I should see their disappointment as a sign that their soul desires eternity and divine perfection. Once their unhappiness is a sign that points me to God, I can be grateful to God for making them realize their soul’s reality honestly and for making them dissatisfied with the limited and passing. Once I have done that, I can also ask God to help them see their disappointment as not a failure on their part but a divine creation carrying a message for them (the same message I got from it). To have a good opinion of unhappy and complaining others is to understand their unhappiness as honest and truthful and to not desire for them a cheap and shallow “contentment” with how things are with a further prayer that God help them, as He has helped me in this case, to see their dissappointment and unhappiness as signs that reveal the existence of what their creator truly wills and wishes for them.
The Quran as Revelation 