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Since love is the foundation of every religious act, fear, hope, and every other devotional state necessarily spring from love and ultimately return to it. The one who hopes and longs hopes only for what he loves, not for what he despises, and the one who fears flees from what he dreads in order to attain what he loves.
Allah the Exalted says: “Those whom they invoke themselves seek a means of approach to their Lord—who among them will be closest—and they hope for His mercy and fear His punishment” ⦗al-Isrāʾ 17:57⦘; and He says: “Indeed, those who believed, emigrated, and strove in the path of Allah—those hope for the mercy of Allah” ⦗al-Baqarah 2:218⦘.
“His mercy” is an all-embracing term for every good, whereas “His punishment” denotes every evil. The abode of unmixed mercy is Paradise, and the abode of unmixed punishment is the Fire, while this world is a realm of gradual testing. Therefore, even when one’s hope is fixed on entering Paradise, the very word Paradise comprises every delight, the greatest of which is to gaze upon the Face of Allah.
Muslim records, through ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā from Suhayb, that the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said:
“When the people of Paradise enter Paradise, a herald will call out, ‘O people of Paradise! You still have a promise with Allah that He wishes to fulfill for you.’ They will ask, ‘What is it? Has He not brightened our faces, made our scales heavy, admitted us to Paradise, and delivered us from the Fire?’ Then the veil will be lifted, and they will gaze upon Him; nothing that they have been given will be dearer to them than looking at Him—this is the ‘increase.’”
From this it becomes clear where the misunderstanding lies in the statement of those who say, “I did not worship You out of longing for Your Paradise or fear of Your Fire; rather, I worshipped You out of longing to behold You.” Such people—and those who follow them—suppose that nothing falls under the name of Paradise except eating, drinking, clothing, marriage, listening, and the like: pleasures confined to created things. This view is shared by the Jahmiyyah who deny the beatific vision, and by others who affirm it yet claim that there is no joy in seeing Allah Himself, as some jurists allege. All of them agree that the terms “Paradise” and “Hereafter” refer only to the enjoyment of created objects.
Because of this assumption, one shaykh who erred, on hearing the verse, “Among you are those who desire this world and among you are those who desire the Hereafter” ⦗Āl ʿImrān 3:152⦘, exclaimed, “So where is the one who desires Allah?” Another, pondering the verse, “Indeed, Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their wealth in exchange that they shall have Paradise” ⦗al-Tawbah 9:111⦘, asked, “If lives and wealth are exchanged for Paradise, where then is the vision of Him?” All this stems from their notion that the vision is not included in Paradise.
In truth, Paradise is the abode that gathers every form of bliss, and the highest of what it contains is gazing upon the Face of Allah; this is one of the delights the people of Paradise attain, as the revealed texts confirm. Likewise, the people of the Fire are veiled from their Lord even as they enter the Fire.
As for the one who uttered the aforementioned saying, if he truly knows what he is saying, his intention is simply: “Had You created neither a Fire nor a Paradise, it would still be obligatory to worship You, draw near to You, and behold You”—just as ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “What an excellent servant.”