Surely those who believe and do good, righteous deeds, the All-Merciful will assign for them love… (Maryam 19:96)
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ سَيَجْعَلُ لَهُمُ الرَّحْمَـٰنُ وُدًّا
Surely those who believe and do good, righteous deeds, the All-Merciful will assign for them love… (Maryam 19:96)
Those for whom God the All-Merciful has promised to assign love among the inhabitants of the earth and heavens need not to do extra things to be loved by others beyond believing and doing good deeds purely for God’s sake.
Verbs in Arabic imply repetition and renewal. Therefore, the infinite verb “āmanū” (they believe) in the verse suggests that those who believe do not remain content with simply coming to belief. Instead, they constantly deepen their belief and pursue further and further horizons by self-renewal through continuous research, meditation, and new discoveries. They not only believe but also spend their lives doing good, righteous deeds. Hence, those who have such a belief and fulfill the requirements of belief in accordance with how God wants them to be fulfilled attain God’s love and regard first, and then they receive people’s welcome. That is, God the All-Merciful assigns for them love among humankind, angels, and jinn. The following hadīth explains this clearly:
When God loves a person, He declares, ‘I love that person, so you, too, love him!’ (Archangel) Gabriel, too, loves him and announces among the inhabitants of the heaven, ‘God loves that person and you, too, love him!’ and the inhabitants of the heaven also love him.[1]
In fact, the love between God and human beings begins with God’s loving them. Those who feel God’s love for them love God in return. This interaction occurs either by God’s creating the causes of His love in those He will love or by loving them in advance due to their future deeds and virtues and awakening their consciences to what is good and virtuous. The main source or dynamics of both of these attainments on the part of human beings is God’s special regard and favor and His love for them.
One’s voicing that they have been honored with such a favor can be regarded as a boastful claim, but it is a fact that those who serve God’s cause and humanity in different parts of the world receive this favor. Today, in almost every corner of the world from the Central Asian steppes to the inmost parts of America, from the midst of Europe to Africa and from there to Australia, the voices of those heroes of service are heard. Time will show what their activities and sacrifices mean for their local community and the whole humankind. When one considers them only from the perspective of the area where they are active, one cannot help but say, “If God had not assigned love and acceptance for those volunteers in the hearts of the people of this world, how would they be able to do that service?”
Indeed, those friends know that serving God’s Religion, their society, and the whole of humanity is the goal of their life, and they live accordingly at a time when calamities follow each other in the world. Thinking constantly of God, they pursue only God’s good pleasure even while resting, walking, eating, or drinking. Once various people from different levels of society—men and women, young and old—come together for this sacred ideal and action—or in the words of the verse, once they “believe and do good, righteous deeds”—God assigns love and acceptance for them on the earth. Personally, I can explain the quality and the dimensions that those activities for God’s sake have attained despite all adversities only in this way and bow down in humbleness and gratitude, saying: “My Lord! All of this is only out of Your pure grace!”
God Almighty says, following the verse under discussion: “We make it (this Qur’ān) in your tongue easy (to recite and understand) so that you may thereby give glad tidings to the God-revering, pious ones, and warn thereby a people given to contention” (Maryam 19:97).
The verse mentions “a mysterious easiness” as a favor of God. When the matter is considered within the framework of the entire context of this verse, the Qur’ān actually refers to some work which is very difficult to perform: indeed, giving glad tidings on behalf of God’s cause is difficult, and so is warning against the possible consequences of misguidance. Conquering hearts is the hardest of all. Moreover, if the conditions that affect the fulfillment of services are inappropriate and the numbers of the qualified persons are few, then it becomes extremely difficult to achieve any purpose. Indeed, to start mobilizing people and the means one has available is too difficult considering especially the fact that setting something stationary in motion or activating something passive requires great effort and energy. For example, when an airplane is taking off, the sole aim is the take-off, and everything is concentrated on the action of take-off. Likewise, while a vehicle is being turned on, the lights, radio, and music players are turned off in order to conserve energy. But once the plane has taken off and the vehicle has been turned on, everything goes back to its normal condition, and they almost move by themselves. Similarly, serving God’s cause, regardless of how we approach it, comes with many difficulties in its initial steps. However, once things begin to go well, what we can call “a productive circle” appears. We observe this process all over the world, concerning which the following verse can also be considered: “Those who strive hard for Our sake, We will most certainly guide them to Our ways. Most assuredly, God is with those devoted to doing good, aware that God is seeing them” (‘Ankabūt 29:69).
Truly, the services done in God’s cause and the peoples or communities that have been honored with God’s nearness and company due to their service over the course of history have been facilitated by God. If we observe history from this perspective, we can see innumerable examples of this. The Prophet’s Companions, the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Seljuks, the Ottomans, and today’s heroes of the second, promising awakening are only a few, most visible examples.
It is also possible to look at the issue from the following point of view. Almighty God says in Sūratu’l-Layl: “Then, as for him who gives (out of his wealth for God’s good pleasure), and keeps from disobedience to Him in reverence for Him and piety, and affirms the best (in creed, action, and the reward to be given), We will make easy for him the path to the state of ease (salvation after an easy reckoning)” (92:5–7).
According to these verses, giving for God’s sake, keeping from disobedience to God in reverence for Him and in piety (at-taqwā), and affirming all that is good in creed, word, and action—all of which are among good, righteous deeds—lead people to finding any responsibility easy. Consider what the Turkish volunteers do all over the world! They work incessantly, emigrate from their homeland to foreign lands, frequently encounter financial shortcomings, and strive in improper conditions even without aiming at any spiritual pleasures, but they do all these lovingly and willingly and without deeming any of them difficult. All of the good, righteous deeds they do have become an inseparable part of their nature and lives. This means that God’s favor of making difficulties easy comes to them in this way. May our souls be sacrificed for Him Who favors us so greatly!
[1] Bukhārī, Badu’l-Khalq, 6; Adab, 41; Tawhīd, 33; Muslim, Birr, 157; Tirmidhī, Tafsīru Sūrah 19:6.
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