Finding Happiness

Something steadier than the English word usually means. And God ties it to what a person does, not to what happens to them. The clearest picture is of a heart: “They are the ones whose hearts rejoice in remembering GOD. Absolutely, by remembering GOD, the hearts rejoice.” [13:28] God says it twice in one verse. And at the end, God calls such a soul content: “As for you, O content soul. Return to your Lord, pleased and pleasing.” [89:27-28] Content first, and then pleased. So the promise of “a happy life in this world” [16:97] is not a promise of easy times. Many verses say believers will be tested. As we read it, the happy life is a heart that rejoices and a soul that is content. We can have that in a bad week. And many people do not have it even in a good one.

No. The verse tells us who receives the promise. It does not list what their life will contain. The terms are all about what we do: “Anyone who works righteousness, male or female, while believing, we will surely grant them a happy life in this world” [16:97]. Nothing there is about health, money, safety or results. The rest of the Quran rules out the idea that it means easy circumstances. God tells us ahead of time that He will test believers through fear, hunger and loss [2:155]. The messengers face some of the hardest tests in the whole book. A promise of an easy life would clash with almost every page. As we read it, this is close to what God promises all through the book. His allies “have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve” [10:62]. That can be true in a hard year. A promise about easy circumstances could not be.

The plainest answer is disregarding God's message. God says it in one line. God says: “As for the one who disregards My message, he will have a miserable life, and we resurrect him, on the Day of Resurrection, blind.” [20:124] That “we” is God speaking. A miserable life now, and blind later. Two results, one cause. The passage in Sura 92 names two things about one man. He holds back “though he is rich”, and he disbelieves in the scripture. He is the one God directs toward misery [92:8-10]. This turns our usual idea around. Most of us think misery comes from what we suffer, or from what we did wrong. In 20:124, God ties it to what a person ignored. And ignoring something is easy to miss. It does not feel like anything at all.

No. And God says the kindest thing about the very things He warns us over. He does not just put up with money and children. He calls them the joys of this life: “Money and children are the joys of this life, but the righteous works provide an eternal recompense from your Lord, and a far better hope.” [18:46] The joys of this life. Those are God's own words. His list of what is adorned for people is a list of good things: family, gold, livestock, crops [3:14]. And the word He uses is adorned. Made to look lovely. Not called bad. So what is He actually saying? Not that these things are wrong. That they do not last. The rain falls, the plants grow, and then they dry into hay and blow away [57:20]. He is not telling us to stop planting. He is telling us where to keep our hope.

As we read it, naming them together stops us from reading the warning as only a warning about greed. The two appear together in verse after verse. Two of those verses are commands. Do not be distracted by “your money and your children” from remembering God [63:9]. Do not be impressed by “their money, or their children” [9:55]. That second verse is about the people described just before it. God makes their money and their children sources of retribution for them. And the picture of this life as play and boasting names the hoarding of both [57:20]. Nobody thinks loving children is a sin. If God had only warned about wealth, anyone who does not feel greedy could agree with the verse and change nothing. Naming what we love most next to what we already distrust changes the question. It is no longer whether what we want is wrong. It is how much of us it has. That question is for all of us.

No. But wealth is a test. The Quran says so plainly. God says it about our own money, twice, in almost the same words: “You should know that your money and your children are a test, and that GOD possesses a great recompense.” [8:28] He says it again in another sura. So the test is real, and it is ours. That does not make the money the problem. Another verse points the same idea at what other people have: “And do not covet what we bestowed upon any other people. Such are temporary ornaments of this life, whereby we put them to the test.” [20:131] What they were given is their test too. And the man in Sura 92 is blamed for holding back “though he is rich” [92:8]. His wealth is what makes the holding back count against him. Giving is the first thing named on the happy side of that same passage. So nothing here praises being poor. And God commands us not to let money and children distract us from remembering Him [63:9].

We are not told how. God tells us that it does, and He says it twice in one breath. He tells us: “They are the ones whose hearts rejoice in remembering GOD. Absolutely, by remembering GOD, the hearts rejoice.” [13:28] Cause and effect, said once and then said again. What God does add is how the remembering happens: through the prayer. He does not leave it to moods. The prayer is there for it, in His own words: “observe the Contact Prayers (Salat) to remember Me” [20:14]. And another verse names what the prayer does and what it is for, with the remembrance as “the most important objective” [29:45]. So we are not given the how. We are given the practice. A mind that turns back to God five times a day is hard for anything else to take over. We can find out for ourselves what it does.

This is God's decree, not a kind word of encouragement. And the order inside it matters. The verse says: “Your Lord has decreed: ‘The more you thank Me, the more I give you.’ But if you turn unappreciative, then My retribution is severe.” [14:7] The thanking comes first. The giving follows. Most of us picture it the other way round. That order helps in daily life. If we wait to feel grateful until we have enough, we may wait forever. Enough may never feel like enough. Starting with thanks removes that wait. Here is something anyone can try for a week: count what is there, not what is missing. This is our own thought, not the verse's. Two people can live the same week and describe it very differently.

In Sura 92, giving is the first thing named on the side of happiness. Holding back is the first thing named on the other side. God sets out both in one short passage. On one side: “As for him who gives to charity and maintains righteousness. And upholds the scripture. We will direct him towards happiness.” [92:5-7] On the other: “But he who is stingy, though he is rich. And disbelieves in the scripture. We will direct him towards misery.” [92:8-10] The stingy man is not poor. His wealth is what makes his holding back count against him. And his stinginess is named first, before his disbelief. Elsewhere God promises givers the same thing He promises all through the book. Those who give night and day, secretly and publicly, “will have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve” [2:274]. To us, that is a picture of a person at peace. Here it is promised to those who give.

By seeing the other person's situation the way God describes it. It is not what it looks like from outside. God gives the command and the reason together: “And do not covet what we bestowed upon any other people. Such are temporary ornaments of this life, whereby we put them to the test. What your Lord provides for you is far better, and everlasting.” [20:131] The middle part helps the most. What they were given is what they are being tested with. That changes how we look at them. Envy sees a nice house, a good job, an easy life. God calls it their test. That verse is spoken to the Prophet himself. And in another sura God tells him: “Do not be jealous of what we bestowed upon the other (messengers)” [15:88]. If a messenger was told not to envy other messengers, none of us is above needing it.

God tells us not to grieve over it. That is half of one short verse. Here it is: “Thus, you should not grieve over anything you miss, nor be proud of anything He has bestowed upon you.” [57:23] One command, pointing both ways. Do not let what we missed become a wound we carry. Do not let what God gave us become something we hold over others. God does not tell us to stop wanting things. He does not tell us to pretend the loss did not hurt. As we read it, the verse speaks to what we keep carrying over time. Not the feeling on the day, but what we still carry a year later. And the two halves belong together. Holding on to a loss and holding on to a win are the same habit. Both keep a score. The verse ends by telling us whom God does not love: “GOD does not love those who are boastful, proud.”

Our side of it can slip. But God's side is a law. The promise is strong: “For them, joy and happiness in this world, as well as in the Hereafter. This is GOD's unchangeable law. Such is the greatest triumph.” [10:62-64] Unchangeable. And in this world, as well as the next. The passage begins with the promise that God's allies have “nothing to fear, nor will they grieve”. It is the same pair the Quran gives believers again and again. Fear looks ahead. Grief looks back. Between them, they unsettle most ordinary weeks. So the law does not change. What can slip is our part. The verse in between names it: “those who believe and lead a righteous life”. As we read it, two habits on this page are the everyday ways our part slips: carrying a loss [57:23] and watching what others have [20:131]. Neither is a disaster, and both come to us as commands we can follow.