Introduction

If you could stop for a moment and think about your life, you would notice that all your memories, even though they might comprise those of several decades, would add up to only a few minutes of conversation. What you once considered important, or had greatly looked forward to, or sought to avoid, are all now part of the past. Whatever remains of these thoughts and feelings are just memories.

However, in the sight of God, each word you uttered, and every thought that crossed your mind, are known to Him. After death, which is destined to happen to every one of us, their records will be unfolded before us. Our life, which will then seem to have been only minutes, will be presented to us moment after moment, without even a single instant missing. In the sight of God, no detail of your life is forgotten.

If you have spent your life submitting to God's absolute sovereignty, in every aspect of your life, accepted the purpose of His creation, and, thereby, recognized the good in all things, and been aware of the ultimate perfection in every instant of the divine plan decreed by God, then you can be certain that the end-result for you will be good.

That is because, at death, man is faced with two choices; if one has lived by the values proclaimed by God, he will attain eternal salvation. Otherwise, he will suffer everlasting torment. The morality God demands be adopted by His servants is a feeling of gratitude towards Him, in every instance, no matter what the conditions and circumstances may be, and having faith that ultimately there is good in whatever befalls us, by being aware that everything is from God.

To become accepting of everything that befalls us, having faith that there is good in each and every case, however seemingly adverse, and being instead thankful for every instance, is by no means an unattainable ideal. Rather, it is a truth, recognizable through a grasp of God's greatness and exaltedness. One needs only to know his Lord, the Creator of this world and every circumstance in his life, and to be grateful towards Him for that very reason.

From the moment a person opens his eyes to the world, it is God Who ordains every event that takes place in his life. God is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise and the All-Just. All is created by God in compliance with a plan, and for a divine purpose just as He says in a verse of the Qur'an, "Indeed, all things We created with predestination." (Surat al-Qamar: 49) In light of God's infinite might and superiority, man is merely a feeble being. Without God's blessings he cannot survive. Through his ability to understand and reason, man can grasp realities only to the extent that his Creator allows him. This being the case, submission to God's infinite wisdom and the divine purpose He had ordained in all things, is a fundamental requirement upon each and every one of us. No matter what we may experience in life, we must remain aware that God is the Sovereign Lord of the entire universe, that He knows, sees and hears what we cannot, that He is knowledgeable even of that which might take place or occur of which we are unaware, and thus, we are to realize that it is God who causes every occurrence to happen, and according to a divine purpose: for our own good.

Putting faith in this truth should inspire us with a better outlook, by which we feel grateful for everything that befalls us. In other words, a person will try to recognize the "good" in everything he hears, in every sight he sees, in every incident he experiences, in brief, in every moment of his life, and thereby, achieve a proper understanding of the meaning of this life. Making the right choice between those offered to him, expressed in the Qur'an as, "We guided him on the Way, whether he is thankful or unthankful" (Surat al-Insan: 3), man will, by God's Will, attain the supreme end-result, that is, the eternal life in paradise.

The purpose of this book is to make light of the beauty of living with the recognition that there is good in every moment one experiences, and every incident one encounters, and to remind ourselves of the blessings such an outlook on life brings, both in this world and beyond. Likewise, by exposing that which hinders a person from seeing this good, this book may aid in saving one from succumbing to a way of thinking opposed to Islam. This book is intended to encourage man towards adopting the proper moral principles by which he will say, "There is good in this", not by mere words, but with his heart, and showing patience in the face of difficulties with heartfelt submission and gratitude, rather than merely enduring the situation. For, to remind each other of the perfection of the destiny ordained by God, it is to summon all believers to enjoy the pleasure of submitting to His infinite wisdom.