al-Raghib al-Isfahani #40 – The Truth About Blessings

The next category is the next four of the five character categories, we're going to treat all as one general lump because there's a difference between the two, there's a difference between the blessings of the afterlife and all the other blessings that are on the walls for honey mentions. And we're going to say why in a second. So, the other categories of blessings, there's the blessings of the virtue and the soul. Right. And this is something that is somewhat gifted, but it's mostly earned that has to do with developing your intellect has to do with developing restraint, developing courage, developing your sense of justice and things like this, then we have blessings of the body.

This is mostly gifted, and somewhat earned or maintained, we have our health, we have our strength, we have the length and longevity of our lives, we have things like beauty, things like beauty is a blessing of the body. And then the next category, we have these sort of external or situational blessings, such as our livelihood, such as our family, our honor, and our dignity. And finally, we have blessings related to success, such as guidance, such as success, such as our persistence, and finally the aid that we get. So what's the point, the point of all these kind of reflecting and breaking these down and categorizing all these blessings are all about us for how he wants us to

realize that the only pure good is the blessing of the afterlife, that's the only pure inherent good, every other blessing that he mentioned, whether it has to do with virtue, whether it has to do with the body, whether it has to do with your family, whether it has to do with success, all these other things are only conditionally good, they're not absolute goods, they're only conditionally good if it leads you to the afterlife. If it benefits your afterlife in some way, then those other blessings are good. But, but if it doesn't lead to the afterlife, if it actually leads you to the hellfire, then these things aren't blessings at all, right. And if you go through every single one

of those blessings that He mentions, it can be used for good and it can be used for bad except for the blessings of the afterlife, even when it comes to virtues. Now, he says that some of these these blessings are more suited towards the afterlife towards success in the afterlife and others. So if you take virtue for example, right virtue is something that is much more useful to the afterlife than it is against the afterlife, right you find someone who develops generosity or develops their you know, their their sense of justice, usually, more often than not, this is going to be a transferable skills, something a tool that's going to help someone obtain the blessings of paradise.

Occasionally, you're going to find somebody who maybe they went to an extreme with it, and it took them off the path. And then it actually did the opposite, where it led them to, to failure in the afterlife. But usually, most of the time, it's going to lead to a positive result. Other blessings are 5050, right? So for example, the intellect developing the intellect, okay, somebody can develop the intellect and become a big jerk, right? An arrogant guy. And then somebody can develop the intellect and it can actually lead them to a slap cause them to enter into the faith of truth in the first place, or caused them to turn back and reflect and change their lives around. So this is

something maybe 5050 and some blessings. And so honey says this and maybe like 1000 years ago, some blessings, they actually tend to lead someone to trouble instead of leading them to paradise and he brings up beauty as one of these, that beauty is a fitna upon people. It's a blessing. It's a blessing, but it's a fitna, why is it a fitna because most people don't use it right? Most people don't use it within the limits that Allah Spano Tata puts, whether it's guys hitting the gym, and putting up their Instagram, video videos and their and their selfies of you know, all the gains and the you know, the muscles that they've got, or whether it's women, doesn't matter what you're

wearing. If you're wearing hijab or in a club, a lot of people they put up the selfies and they put up these images of themselves that are very seductive, they're very alluring, right? Is this how Allah wants us to use our beauty? Right? Are you using it the Okay? There's beautiful people Allah is beautiful and he loves beauty. That's the Hadith of Prophet it. He said, How are you using this blessing? He gave you this blessing your beautiful mashallah Tabata cola? How are you using the blessing? Are you using it in service of your afterlife? Or are you actually using it in a way that it's actually going to prevent you from succeeding in the afterlife, or all whilst Rouhani, about

1000 years ago, he said, even then, he said, most people, if they're blessed with beauty, they don't use it. in service of their afterlife, it actually is a hindrance for them. And it's actually working against them for succeeding in the afterlife. So this is, this is what He wants us to think about that time is short, our lives are short, and all of these sorts of blessings. We can't lose the forest through the trees, a lot of us get lost in enjoying the blessings that Allah gives us that are actually given to us to achieve a greater blessing. The intellect, the beauty, the health, the family and the livelihood. These are all blessings Allah gives us they're not inherent good.

They're not absolute good. They're meant to be used as tools to get us to the greatest blessing. That's only

Fear good, which is the blessing of the afterlife. But many of us get lost in the in the meantime, and we get lost with enjoying the blessings of kind of what what's nice and what's fun and what's pleasant in this life and we forget about the reason that they're given to us. And the goal that we're supposed to be using them for, at all. So we have to be careful, we have to really be careful. And he ends this section by saying that we have to realize what these things they're their their intended purpose is for and we need to avail ourselves of them and use them in the right way. We don't want to be like people who we thought we were grabbing on to a rope and we ended up grabbing

on to a snake, right we we grab on to these blessings. We think that these bow This is from a log great, but we're actually using them in a way that's detrimental. That's going to hurt us when it comes to the afterlife.