If someone were to ask you: “What do you get from reading the Quran?” what will be your answer? Most probably you will say that you get guidance because Quran is a revelation from Allah to guide us to success. Or your answer might be that you get great rewards by reciting Quran… like 10 hasanat for just one letter… Or you could be among the few who will say that they read Quran so as to remember Allah… because remembrance of Allah is a highly noble act and Quran is the Ultimate form of Zikr… All of these answers are correct and complete but there is one benefit of having Quran in your life, which probably never came to your mind… and that is what this article is all about.
I am not going into any bookish lessons here… just sharing my own experience… that when I started learning Quran about 15 years back, I also had in mind the same objectives… I wanted to be guided… I wanted to get rewards for my akhirah… But what I hadn’t known and what I had least expected was that the Quran brought happiness into my life…
So you might think that if the Quran was meant to make us happy then where is the proof?
So here is the ayah from Allah Himself which says it all…
O men! there has come to you indeed an advice from your Lord and a healing for what is in the hearts and a guidance and a mercy for the believers.
Say: In the grace of Allah and in His mercy– in that they should rejoice; it is better than that which they gather.
[10:57,58]
The First ingredient for Happiness
If we analyze the emotion of happiness, we can see that being happy is a state of the heart…
In the Quran Allah says:
“If you are grateful, I will add more (favours) unto you”
[14:7]
Therefore, happiness is directly connected to gratitude… Allah is promising us that if we appreciate what we have and give thanks for all His blessings then He will give us more… it means that if you stop being resentful and start looking at the favours of Allah on you, then Allah will allow you to see even more goodness in your life… in other words the ultimate favour of Allah is that He enables us to have the eyes that can see the good in every situation… His ultimate favour is that He fills our hearts with happiness… and the more we are grateful and appreciative the more he increases in us the capacity to feel pleasure even in the smallest of his blessings… This is true richness which does not fluctuate with the rise and fall of your assets… rather it is a constant state of satisfaction and contentment that you can never be deprived of because you are in the care of Allah who owns all the treasures of the heavens and the earth…
But we are humans and tend to fall in the traps of shaytan who time and again makes us see our “deprivations”… so that we become sad and depressed… this is what our enemy loves the most because when we will be in this defeated mode then we will not be able to remain grateful to Allah and we will lose our enthusiasm to get close to Him… So what is the solution? How can we remain happy in these times of trials upon trials?
The second ingredient for happiness
The answer is in the following formula:
- We cannot remain happy if we are not grateful
- We cannot remain grateful unless we have patience
Some scholars have said that gratitude and patience are the two wings which keep us flying… one depends on the other. But what does patience mean?
It means perseverance… it means consistency and it means to refrain from negative reactions. The beauty of the Quran is that it doesn’t just give us abstract ideas… rather it gives us practical ideas on how to achieve these ideas… like the following advice:
O you who believe! seek help with patient perseverance and prayer; for Allah is with those who patiently persevere.
[2:153]
Therefore the key to attaining patience is to remain constant in our salah… and what is the essence of salah? It is an absolutely amazing combination of reciting Quran and physically being connected with Allah… standing in front of Him… putting our face down on the ground and coming into the closest possible position… to feel His love, His mercy and His nearness.
So the one who remembers this five times a day and goes through this spiritual refresher again and again… is it possible for such a person to not be happy?
Actually our problem is that we think that happiness is possible only when there are no problems… we look at some people and think that they are so lucky because they look so privileged… but we don’t realize that for each and every one of us there is a trial which we must go through… So the fortunate people are not those who don’t have problems… rather the ones worthy of congratulations are those to whom Allah is sending His salutations…
…give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere…Who say, when afflicted with calamity: “To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return”:- They are those on whom (Descend) blessings from Allah, and Mercy, and they are the ones that receive guidance.
Therefore, Allah gives us happiness through Quran by opening the eyes of our hearts and allowing us to see things in a positive light… This light and this guidance is surely the ultimate gift of Allah that He gives to whom He wills… May Allah give us the delight of His love and mercy… May He make our hearts full of gratitude and happiness…Ameen
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