The Philosophy of the Teachings of Islam — Page 119
113 in the hand of God. It is only when we face God completely that we acquire the steadfastness that overcomes all passions of self; and that steadfastness brings about the death of the life that is devoted to selfish purposes. Our steadfastness is as He has said: بَلَى مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهُ لِلَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنُ 157 This means that God requires that we should offer ourselves to be sacrificed in His cause. We shall achieve steadfastness when all our faculties and powers are devoted to His cause and our death and our life are all for His sake, as He has said: قُل اِنَّ صَلاتِي وَنُسُكِي وَمَحْيَايَ وَمَمَاتِي لِلهِ رَبِّ الْعَلَمِينَ 158 That is, proclaim, O Prophet: My prayer and my sacrifices and my living and my dying are all for the sake of Allah. When a person's love of God reaches a stage at which his living and his dying is not for his own sake but is entirely for God, then God, Who has always loved those who love Him, bestows His love upon him and by the meeting of these two loves a light is generated inside the person which the world cannot recognize or understand. Thousands of the righteous 157. Nay, whoever submits himself completely to Allāh, and is the doer of good, (The Holy Quran, al-Baqarah 2:113) 158. Say, 'My Prayer and my sacrifice and my life and my death are all for Allah, the Lord of the worlds. (The Holy Quran, al-An'ām 6:163)