Text of the post:
All acts of worship serve humanity in these areas:
1. Bodily health, which serves mental health.
2. Building character and developing willpower.
3. Developing the spirit and strengthening the connection with God.
4. Reward, recompense and forgiveness of sins.
Comment:
1. This post misorders worship’s benefits by putting bodily and mental health and developing willpower first and second, while relegating spiritual development, strengthening the relationship with God, forgiveness of sins and attaining reward to later positions. It also confuses worship’s worldly benefits with the purpose for which it was prescribed. Strengthening the relationship with God through sincerity and following the prophetic example is a purpose for which humanity was created. God says: “They were commanded only to worship God, devoting religion sincerely to Him, inclining to the truth, and to establish prayer and give zakat. That is the upright religion” (al-Bayyinah 98:5).
2. Acts of worship are ends in themselves for whose sake God created creation. Treating them merely as serving human interests diminishes their standing and makes them like means. They certainly include benefits returning to people in this world and the hereafter, but they have immense standing in themselves, because they fulfil God’s right to devotion and humility before Him. He deserves worship; it is His greatest right. Even had He assigned worship no benefits returning to humanity, indeed even no reward in the hereafter, He would still deserve worship. Glorifying and revering Him is, in itself, a purpose of human creation, and this is what devotion to Him means. God says: “I created jinn and human beings only to worship Me” (al-Dhariyat 51:56).
God’s undertaking to admit believers to Paradise, as well as the worldly joy they find through obeying Him, is purely His favour, generosity and mercy. Our worship and faith are by no means its purchase price. They are causes that God created; He creates both cause and effect. God says: “They will say, ‘Praise belongs to God, who guided us to this. We would never have been guided had God not guided us. Our Lord’s messengers certainly came with the truth.’ They will be called: ‘This is the Paradise you have been made to inherit because of what you used to do’” (al-A‘raf 7:43). God knows best.
For more, see:
Was worship prescribed to protect souls from aggression, oppression and injustice?
People’s positions on the benefit and wisdom of worship
Did the Prophet call for renewing the immune system?
The true teachings of the Qur’an
Seeking forgiveness and worldly interests: a mathematical equation