According to Islam, “Happiness” can be expressed in the Arabic term Sa ’dah, which has an association with both dimensions of life: the present world (Dunyawiyyah) and the world hereafter (Ukhrawiyyah). The contrary of Sa ’dah is the Shaqawahconveying misfortune and misery. Concerning Sa ’dah, this indicates eternal happiness hereafter, which is the undying enjoyment, the greatest of which is the bestowing of the Vision of God. This ultimate gift has been promised to those who will spend their worldly life in intentional submission, consciousness, and obedience to God’s commands and prohibitions. This explains that Sa ‘dah in the afterlife is closely related to how we spend our life in this world, concerning which it relates to three things: 1) to the self (nafsiyyah), 2) to the body (badaniyaah), and 3) to the things except our self and body (kharijiyyah) such as wealth and other things of well-being. This explains that happiness is not confined to secular life but is also influenced by religion through Revelation.
According to Al-Attas, to obtain an improved description of the Sa ‘dah in Islam, it is essential to initially distinguish the Shaqawah. Shaqawah presents the essential sense of enormous (sorrow, anguish, downhearted, soul unevenness).
In the explanation of the Quran, the meaning of Shaqawah in its various coupled forms, such as shaqaa, yashqa, tashqa, shaqiyy, and shiqwah is moderately linked to the afterlife, moderately to this dominion, and somewhat to both. Conferring to Al-Attas, both of these undoubtedly relate to those who turn down God and discard His commands.
In summary, we believe that Shaqawah causes hardship in people’s lives. This ‘desperation’ sensation will occur in someone who disregards God’s laws and continues to act in a way that God has forbidden. This sensation of desperation will occur in someone who disregards and frequently disregards God’s orders.
Just the way self-happiness is associated with moral character and acquaintance, the seat of knowledge, as per teachings of Islam, is his heart (qalb), self (nafs), his intelligence (‘aql), or his soul (ruh).
Because the self is closely linked in a duple characteristic of “self” and “soul”, it is referred to as the animal soul (al-nafs al-hayawaniyyah) at one point and the rational soul (al-nafs al-natiqah) on the other; with its ultimate goal being happiness in this world and the hereafter. The animal soul is motivated and sensitive, while the rational soul is vigorous and intellectual. They combine together to induce vice and virtues in human behavior.
Virtuous deeds are demarcated not just in relation to metaphysical well-being but also by reorganizing them about the psychological notion of religious well-being, which is characterized as peripheral and core. Other associated expressions explaining pleasure and misery are taken into consideration and elucidated when unfolding pleasure in relation to its opposite. We do not bind our consideration of contentment to the sphere of chronological, materialistic life, for since we confirm that the relation of pleasure to the henceforward has a close and noteworthy behavior on its relation to worldly life, and subsequently, in the prior case it is a mystical and everlasting state, there is a component of pleasure that we feel and are aware of even in its chronological and materialistic engrossment and that once accomplished, it is undying. We accomplish from the prior brief, but all-inclusive explanation of the explanation and understanding of pleasure in Islam that desire in this lifespan is not a conclusion in the situation, that the conclusion of contentment is the love of God, and that there are two stages of contentment in this life.
Rendering to al-Ghazali, there are four categories of “means” (wasa’il) for pleasure that man would exploit in his life to accomplish satisfaction. Respective of these four gadgets, there are four categories of virtuousness. (1) corporeal ‘goods’ (al-fada ‘il al-jismiyya), (2) soul ‘goods’ (al-fada ‘il an-nafsiyyah), (3) godly loveliness ‘goods’ (al-fada ‘il at-tawfiqiyya), and (4) peripheral ‘goods’ (al-fada ‘il al-kharijiyyah). The good of the soul is formed by excellent behavior (Husn al-khuluq) and faith (Iman). Resultantly, faith is alienated into disclosure information and purposeful confidence information. Confidence is recurrently used substitutable with insight. As for proper conduct, it is separated into abstinence and morality.
This is because abstinence and fairness need the subjugation of yearning and rage, and the development of all good attributes is dependent on this suppression (Al-Ghazali, 2015). The four soul bequests can then be divided into two minor portions: faith or understanding and the soul’s commendable characters. Those are the two most straight routes to pleasure. Since action (‘amal) will result in the enhancement of the soul by valuable qualities, information, and deed appear to be the contiguous course to contentment. In terms of physical qualities, fitness, strength, permanency, and elegance are mentioned. Physical possession is a noteworthy practice of acquiring gratification, like the prior, since the benefits of the soul cannot be reached entirely lacking it.
It is obvious in what way the prior and corporeal cooperate. Possession of intelligence, which comprises statistics and deeds, cannot be simply tracked, lacking decent health and satisfactory bodily authority from body possession. This blend will fetch men more satisfaction in their lives. Revenue, inspiration, private, and honorable birth are instances of peripheral rewards. Each of the following features aids a precise determination in backing up men to discover pleasure in their natural life. In other words, they uplift man’s accurate behavior in his worldly relations, providing him with more chances to assemble for pleasure. As an example, contemplate assets. By owning creative possessions, the possessor would be pleased with the compulsion to acquire the requirements of life. Sequentially, he will bestow a significant amount of his time in congregating statistics and putting them into accomplishment.
The Qur’an enlightens Satan, enticing Adam, contravening God, and permitting Satan to beguile himself. Nevertheless, Adam and his partner, unlike Satan, documented their fault, were bumped into repentance at their unkindness to themselves, and sought after God’s mercy and redemption. They were all excused but were subpoenaed to this world in conjunction with Satan to spend a life of wretchedness. God assured Adam and his progenies that supervision would arise from Him and that whoever pursues His instruction will not go afield or tumble into wretchedness, but whoever ever turns away from the commemoration of Him will certainly live an inadequate life beleaguered by uncertainty and the loftiness of internal tension-need by unfamiliarity to the pieces of evidence and the genuineness of their quandary.
It is also specified that the state of peacefulness in the mind is fetched about by reminiscence of God and that this and other righteous actions encompass an erstwhile awareness in the soul of the certainty that originates from celestial supervision. This awareness demonstrates itself as certainty (yaqin). When the soul has elapsed itself, that is, when its cogent characteristic has been curbed by its animal characteristic, it turns out to be conscious only of its engrossment in its physical knacks and the preferences and piers of worldly life or the detection of materialistic viewpoint and science and observation of evidence consequential from them, or even both collectively. This is why the Qur’an suggests that those who overlook God would be unable to find their souls or identities.
