but rather that this world is a field sown for another abode, and that eternal bliss or everlasting misery will be found there. The causes that lead to either, however, are earned here—by conforming to, or departing from, the limits set by the Lawgiver. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the morally responsible person to employ the means that lead to those ends.

Issue Three: When an action accords with the objectives of the sacred law
An action will either aim at the primary objectives or at the subsidiary objectives. If it is carried out in harmony with the primary objectives and takes due account of them, its soundness is unquestionable, for the intent of the divine legislation is to free the servant from the pull of his own desires so that he may become a true slave of Allah. On this basis several principles are built. One such principle is that, whenever the primary objectives are observed, the servant is closer to sincerity, his deed is more likely to be true worship, and it is farther removed from the self-interests that mar the purity of servitude.

Issue Four: A person may abandon one personal advantage in favor of another that he deems higher. You see people spending their wealth in pursuit of prestige, because the ego prizes status more; they even risk their very lives for the sake of leadership, dying along that path. Similarly, certain ascetics forsake worldly pleasures for the delight of authority and veneration, which they consider superior. In their view, the share of fame, honor, leadership, respect, and social standing is the greatest of gains, beside which the enjoyments of this world appear paltry.

Issue Five: Monks and those like them seclude themselves in cells and monasteries, giving up appetites and pleasures and relinquishing their own rights in order to devote themselves to their object of worship. They exert the utmost effort in every form of devotion they believe will draw them near to Him. Yet all they do will be rejected and will profit them nothing in the Hereafter, for they have built on no sound foundation, as the Most High says: “Faces on that Day will be humbled, laboring…” (Al-Ghashiyah 88:2–3).