BY HARUN YAHYA

Introduction

During the course of your life, you have met a great many people. As well as those you encounter every day in person—your family, friends and your colleagues at school and work—you see dozens of people from all over the world in the newspapers and magazines. And on your TV screen, you watch the behavior of hundreds more.

Think for a moment about these individuals you recall in your memory. Try to call to mind facial expressions and conversations you have grown accustomed to since your childhood... the comments some have made about their lives, their concerns and worries and the ways they express them... the remarks that colleagues repeat daily, and what others say amongst themselves about their families and financial problems.

Try to recall in your mind's eye the people you've seen in the street, waiting at a bus stop, trying to battle their way home through dense traffic, or being splashed with rainwater by passing cars.

Remember the images of actors in TV programs, those who act the part of happy people, seemingly enjoying themselves in front of the cameras and who claim to the press that they're friends but behind one another's backs, say unbelievably bad things. Think about their spiritual state and the state of those unable to protect themselves from jealousy, hatred, rivalry or other such emotions—and who, while trying to entertain others because it is their job to do so, betray their own unhappiness in everything they do off-stage and off-camera.

Examine the lives of people who have attained the highest possible worldly rank, who have enough money to buy whatever they want whenever they choose, who live in the finest houses and own the latest model cars, who wear the most expensive clothes and who—because of their achievements— are most respected and listened to in their community.

When you carefully consider all these people, you will come across a very important truth. Whatever their circumstances may be, there is one significant feature they have in common: The great majority of people lead unhappy lives.

The goods and property they own, the jobs they perform, and their loved ones are not enough to make these people happy in any real sense. These people's lives are ruled not by happiness, tranquility, pleasure and joy, but by negative emotions like melancholy, pessimism and hopelessness. A great part of most people's time is spent in this mood. When compared to true happiness, those moments when they are capable of being happy are fleeting and extremely shallow.

Sometimes, too, they may be driven to deceive both themselves and those around them. Yet deep inside, they are experiencing a secret sorrow that prevents them from taking pleasure in all the good they see around them.

So why are these people unhappy? Why do they suffer such deep inward sorrow and lead lives that lack tranquility?

The reason why they suffer from sorrow and feel unhappy even in the best of circumstances is because they live at a distance from Allah. Allah grants people happiness only through faith, and only in this way it is possible to take full pleasure in the beautiful things of life. So long as no sincere faith in accordance with the Qur'an exists, it is impossible to achieve true happiness by any means whatsoever.

This book will highlight this important truth and call on people to live out true and sincere faith. It will explain that people really create with their own efforts the systems that prevent them from being happy and enjoying life's blessings, and which plunge them into sorrow. It will make it clear that the only way to be protected against secret unhappiness is to believe in Allah with a sincere heart. It will remind the readers that so long as people do not achieve this sincerity towards Allah, they cannot experience real happiness by any means whatsoever—and that the secret sorrows of this world may well turn to eternal torment in the Hereafter.

In a verse of the Qur'an, Allah tells us that those who find happiness and salvation are the faithful:

It is the believers who are successful. (Surat al-Muminun: 1)

Why Do People Sorrow While They Could Be Happy?

Despite all their efforts, many cannot experience happiness in the true sense. To achieve this purpose, they try everything they can possibly imagine in the life of this world. They constantly pursue new ideals, believing that when they achieve these, they will find happiness as well. Some search for one good friend, some for wealth, some to attain their spiritual desires. Even if their wishes and expectations do become reality, still the results are never as they hoped. They cannot taste lasting happiness in the true sense. Mainly, they try not to reveal on their faces this dissatisfaction which they feel inside. But no matter how much they mimic happiness, they are living with a secret sorrow within.

In fact, they have every opportunity to be happy. In one verse of the Qur'an, Allah tells us about the blessings He grants people:

If you tried to number Allah's blessings, you could never count them. Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful. (Surat an-Nahl: 18)

As Allah tells us in this verse, a person encounters remarkable blessings throughout his life. Allah has equipped the world with all manner of wonders for everyone to enjoy. However, for people to be happy in the true sense, neither these blessings they enjoy nor the ideals they pursue are adequate by themselves. The people's discontent arises from the incorrect belief systems on which they've based their lives.

Unhappy People Have False Beliefs

There is a way of life that the great majority of people share. This way of life we call the "satanic system," prevails where there is no religious morality. This system is founded on an insincerity that is so deeply rooted in people's lives that even those who appear to be the most sincere, whose behavior which is assumed to be perfectly straightforward, may have fundamentally insincere motives.

Even though people fail to attribute any names to this system, they are naggingly aware of the error of the system under which they live. At every opportunity, they complain of the hypocrisy of others, because they have not experienced true friendship or true love and have no one they can trust in the full sense. Still, they themselves do not hesitate to display the same flawed morality towards all those around them.

In this system, everyone is damaged by his own actions. Even if such people try in every possible way, still they cannot find genuine internal joy, tranquility and happiness—yet they accept this as "a fact of life." In other words, according to them, Earthly life is not a place where true happiness and peace can be found on any lasting basis.

The truth is that unhappiness is not in any way a fact of life. On the contrary, it is extremely easy for people to find the solution for the internal troubles into which they fall. A verse in the Qur'an says, "... Only in the remembrance of Allah can the heart find peace" (Surat ar-Ra'd: 28). Here, Allah tells people that they can achieve true happiness only by finding faith. Only if they understand the mercy and protectiveness that Allah holds for them and live out their worldly lives in religious morality can people enjoy every moment. Only then can they praise the beauty of what they see around them as it should be appreciated and begin to experience happiness.

In the verse, "Anyone who acts rightly, male or female, being a believer, We will give them a good life and We will recompense them according to the best of what they did" (Surat an-Nahl: 97), Allah promises that He will allow the faithful who believe in Him to live the finest lives in this world and the Hereafter. Those who follow Allah experience the blessings He promises, both in this world and the next.

On this point, however, there is an important truth that people ignore. In order for people to experience the fine things of this life and enjoy the blessings of the world and the large number of beautiful things which Allah has created for them, then, faith in its true meaning must be lodged in their hearts. Otherwise, by paying the proverbial lip service to faith and by resembling the truly faithful only in certain limited ways, people cannot protect themselves from the unhappiness within. To know true happiness, people must bind their hearts to Allah in complete submission and live every moment in conformity to the Qur'an. Failing to do this, they will continue to suffer internal sorrow during every stage of their lives. No matter how much they want to be happy they cannot be. On the contrary, their lives will be ruled by such negative emotions as despair, pessimism and hopelessness.

As you can see, the road to happiness is an extremely simple one. With the Qur'an, the Divine Book that Allah has bestowed upon mankind as a mercy, He has shown people the secret of happiness. People can live a beautiful life only if they behave in accordance with their creation and the nature Allah has determined for them. People who turn aside from this path which Allah has shown them as a blessing, or who fail to follow the path as it should be followed, are creating a world of unhappiness for themselves by their own efforts. As Allah tells us in the verse, "Allah does not wrong people in any way; rather it is people who wrong themselves" (Surah Yunus: 44), these people are only tormenting themselves.

The unhappiness experienced by these people leads to the reality described by Allah in the verse, "Leave them then until they meet their Day when they will be struck down by the Blast: the Day their ploys will not profit them at all and they will not be helped. And those who do wrong will have a punishment besides that, but most of them do not know it" (Surat at-Tur: 45-47). In the Hereafter, Allah gives people recompense for what they do on Earth, but He also warns people that a torment of which most are not even aware will begin in the life of this world.

Allah refers to the difficulties that people who turn away from the faith will experience in worldly life, and what they will receive in the Hereafter in this verse: "... if anyone turns away from My reminder, his life will be a dark and narrow one, and on the Day of Resurrection We will gather him blind" (Surah Ta Ha: 124). Allah has shown people the way to protect themselves from this trouble and, as we have noted before, it is possible to do so through genuine sincerity and a deep faith in Allah.