فَإِذَا لَقِيتُمُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ فَضَرْبَ ٱلرِّقَابِ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَثْخَنتُمُوهُمْ فَشُدُّوا۟ ٱلْوَثَاقَ فَإِمَّا مَنًّۢا بَعْدُ وَإِمَّا فِدَآءً حَتَّىٰ تَضَعَ ٱلْحَرْبُ أَوْزَارَهَا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ وَلَوْ يَشَآءُ ٱللَّهُ لَٱنتَصَرَ مِنْهُمْ وَلَـٰكِن لِّيَبْلُوَا۟ بَعْضَكُم بِبَعْضٍۢ ۗ وَٱلَّذِينَ قُتِلُوا۟ فِى سَبِيلِ ٱللَّهِ فَلَن يُضِلَّ أَعْمَـٰلَهُمْ ٤
“When you meet those who deny/cover up, strike the necks, until you subdue them and then firmly bind the bond/covenant–later you can release by grace or by ransom/reward/return––until he stops the war. That [is the way]. God could have defeated them Himself if He had willed, but He tests some of you by means of others. Those who are killed in His path come, God does not make their deeds come to naught”
I was emphasizing to my 80-year old father how important it is that he moves his muscles and body, that he exercises daily, so that his muscles don’t keep getting weaker. We were talking about how, since his stroke a few years ago, it has gotten progressively harder for him to stand up from a sitting position, to maintain balance while walking, to bear the pain in his shoulders and knees when he tries to move them for exercise and so on. In the middle of the coversation, he paused, smiled – i think at my enthusiastic and well-intentioned advice – and said to me: “But what is the point? I exercise or I dont, i probably have only a couple of years left anyway. Yes, perhaps the quality of my life might be a little better so I guess you may say its still ‘worth it’ but…” and I stopped talking and tried to hear what he had said to me. He wasn’t sure it was ‘worth it’ or meaningful to exert what to him was extraordinary effort to try and keep his weakening muscles just a little stronger so he can last just a couple of years longer in this world or to live out those couple of years (perhaps!) with slightly more strength and less pain. What was the point? After a brief pause, I said to him: “that is a very good question actually. I may also have a couple of years left and even if I presume I will last into old age, I may have another 30 or 40 years but its all ending for me too! so yes, I have the same problem as you even though it appears that I have a lot of ‘time’ so its somehow still worth it for me to try and stay healthy, renovate my house, be motivated to do things that increase my happiness and comfort and so on”. I told him he was right to question the point of investing energy into something and finding value in something that is going to, inescapably and sooner or later, end in death. In our coversation, we had met a perspective that denied our lives any satisfactory meaning. Our actions seemed to all amount to nothing! What was the point of doing anything?
What came to mind was the Quranic claim/suggestion that whatever is in this world, it is there to glorify God. Human beings do anything that they do, the Quran claims, as servants/slaves of God so that what they do reflects or indicates what kind of master/lord they have. I told dad that for him (and me and anyone else) to try to act to preserve or improve his health and wellbeing, despite the gradual but certain decline and end/death of all things, can be done (should we listen to the Quran) as a glorification of our creator and sustainer as One who gives life and health and loves life and health for us. My dad immediately said: but He is taking away life, isn’t he? The implicit question was: how is God glorified as One who loves life and health for me when He is the one giving me death and illness? Again, one had to wage a battle against this idea: God is giving me death and illness after giving me life and health so that 1) i would know that life and health are not from me or simply there on their own or from any of the material causes i associate with the existence of life and health – this is the ‘ransom’ i must extract from the idea that God is depriving me of life and that I don’t have any way to excape a terrible and cruel end. I can’t just ‘let it go’ and ‘accept’ that God must have a reason to deprive me of life. No! I must bind this threatening enemy of an idea and release it from a position of grace and when it delivers a reward/ransom! and 2) it is God who is glorified as the One who wants for me life and health in the aversion to death and illness that my soul bears witness to – the soul that is from the divine and bears His commands and will. So with that in place, I can now find it meaningful to act in the name of the life-giver and health-giver and ever-living to value and care for life (my own and that of others) and take the actions that reflect and indicate such a position. I exercise to stop my muscles from deteriorating quickly for the glory of the One who wants for me life (and while I am in this realm, that life is inseparably connected with my material body and beauty is connected with things, e.g. my house, that can be beautiful or some actions that bear some praiseworthy and glorified qualities. I do what I do to glorify and in the name of those beauties and perfections that I see as belonging to my sustainer and God and which I expect and hope for from Him eternally and without end. Without looking at my actions as glorifying and indicating a merciful, wise and life-giving provider, I would be a being with a body and in a world where material things bear the beautful/immaterial (air and water carry life even as they themselves are not alive and cannot create life) that finds all its actions come to naught! Not only would it not make much sense to exercise at 80. It woud not make sense for me to try and get a job and take care of my health or try to visit beautiful places at 45 because all would, sooner or later, perish for good even as it is also perishing, imperceptibly to most, gradually every day.
One has to restrain/bind the ideas that, if allowed free access to one’s mind/heart, throw the soul into the pit of meaninglessness. But when one has found a meaning that ends the battle – when those ideas no longer attack and threaten but instead offer a return/ranson, they bring to me meanings that put my mind/heart at ease and no longer cause me to feel that my life and what I do in this world has no meaning – then I can let them go as they are no longer a threat to me. That idea that allows me to get a ransom from everything that seems to deny me a life and meaning is the idea that the One who is the source of all life and meaning is glorified in the struggle/battle (instead of indifference) I experience when I meet such denials/deniers.
My encounter with things that break my connection with the divine meaning of my actions is a battle and a war because these ideas go against the reality that my soul knows. In this battle, the God who wants for me life and health despite Him being the One who is giving me death and illness in this realm, is glorified in my eyes. He can be if I choose to take his revelation to my life and let that revelation guide me about the meaning my actions and life should have.
The Quran as Revelation 