Section: On the benefits and fruits that follow from embracing these magnificent doctrines

Know that every good in this world and the Hereafter is one of the fruits of sound faith. By it the servant enjoys a wholesome life in both abodes, finds deliverance from hardships and evils, sees his burdens lightened, and attains every worthy aim. We shall therefore point to these fruits in some detail, for understanding the advantages and harvest of faith is among the strongest motives for increasing in it:

• One of the fruits of faith is that it is the means to Allah’s good pleasure, which is the greatest attainment. No one has ever enjoyed Allah’s approval in this life or the next except through faith and its fruits; Allah has made this explicit in many passages of His Book (1). When Allah is pleased with a servant, He accepts the servant’s meagre deeds and multiplies them, and He forgives the servant’s many slips and effaces them.

• Another fruit is that the reward of the Hereafter—entry into Paradise, the enjoyment of its bliss, and salvation from the Fire and its punishment—is obtained only through faith. The people of faith are the people of unrestricted reward; they are the ones delivered from every evil.

• Yet another fruit is that Allah wards off and protects the believers from the harms of this world and the next, repelling from them the plots of the devils among humankind and jinn. Hence He said, “He has no authority over those who have believed and who put their trust in their Lord” (Qur’an 16:99). And when He mentioned saving Jonah, He said, “Thus do We deliver the believers” (21:88), meaning that We rescue them from hardships and distresses whenever they fall into them.