and the gift of a happy existence and an easy, carefree livelihood.

3 – As for “goodness in the Hereafter,” it is the greatest bounty and the supreme felicity: unending life and everlasting bliss, the highest of which is the Lord’s good pleasure and entry into His Garden, where the believers will behold His noble Face and enjoy the Day of Increase. There they will find delights that never perish, youth that never fades, a life of happiness that never ends, and uninterrupted enjoyment of pleasures beyond imagination or comprehension, for:

“No soul knows what has been hidden for them of comfort for the eyes, as a reward for what they used to do.” (32:17)

That is, delights no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard, and that have never crossed any human heart.

4 – As for protection from the punishment of the Fire, that is the perfection of bliss, the completion of intimacy, the attainment of security, the removal of worry and grief, and the disappearance of fear and distress; for:

“Whoever is kept away from the Fire and admitted into Paradise has indeed triumphed.” [3:185]

I ask Allah, exalted is He, by His Most Beautiful Names and Most Sublime Attributes, and by the fact that He alone is Allah—there is no god but He—the One, the Unique, the Eternal Refuge, who neither begets nor is begotten and to whom none is comparable, to make us among those who gain His Paradise and His pleasure and are saved from His punishment and His wrath—ourselves, our parents, our relatives, our teachers, and all our Muslim brothers and sisters, the first of them and the last. May Allah send His blessings and peace upon our Prophet, and upon his family and all his Companions.
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