Three More Effects and Advantages of Religious Faith

Blog Post 74

February 17, 2025

As the blessed month of Ramadhan approaches, we are offering Part 2 of Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari’s (1) discussion on the effects and advantages of religious faith. (Part 1 was posted on April 10, 2022 in Blog Post #51)

 We pray your Ramadhan is full of many blessings, inshallah.

Introduction

Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari in Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man and the Universe (1985, pp. 42-46), after providing many effects and advantages of religious faith (see Blog Post #51), discusses three more important effects and advantages of religious faith:

1. produces cheer and expansiveness

2. ameliorates social relationships

3. lessens troubles

Cheer and Expansiveness

When we possess religious faith, we gain optimism about our universe, creation and ourselves. Islam teaches us that the universe was created with a purpose and the reason Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala created it and what is within it, including inanimate and animate beings and people, was for goodness, happiness and evolution. Our faith provides us with a worldview and understanding of the “universal system of being and its governing laws” and that is an optimistic one. We see and believe in Allah’s “good intentions” in His administration of the laws and regulations of everything and everyone. Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala wants what is good for us.

This goodness results in our understanding that there is a way to progress and elevate ourselves on the Earth. Whatever gets in the way of that comes from our own “laziness and inexperience.” This is true for all of us. We do not blame others for our shortcomings and failures, including man-made rules and regulations, institutions and governments. These man-made entities should be in line with Allah’s Subhanahu wa ta’ala system of governance. If they are not, our zeal should prevail with “optimism, hope and action” to correct and change the system(s), or dismantle it altogether for an Allah-given one.

This is a different mindset and worldview than those who do not have faith in Allah Subhanahu ta’ala. That is because without religious faith, people will view their situation, laws and regulations, and the government as corrupt and oppressive with no recourse, no point, no ability to overcome it. They will only be left with the negative feeling that they have to endure what is happening to them. They will succumb to “rancour and vindictiveness” and believe that everything and everyone are filled with “injustice, oppression and wrongness.” It will not occur to such a person that they should reform themselves and the system(s) they face. “He thinks: ‘What effect can the rightness of a speck like me have?’ Such a person never takes pleasure in the world; the world for him is always like a nightmarish prison.”

Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala says in the Holy Qur’an:

“For whoever turns away from remembrance of Me,  life will be narrow.” (20:124)

Thus, religious faith provides an “expanse to life within us and checks pressures on the spiritual agencies.” It illuminates our heart. When we see the world illuminated with truth and reality, our spirit and soul are illuminated. “It becomes like a lamp illuminating his inward being.” People without religious “faith see the universe as futile and dark…devoid of perception, insight, and light. His heart is dark and oppressed in this dark dwelling he has conceived.”

Religious faith also ensures hope. We have hope that our efforts will result in a good outcome. The wrong logic of materialism says that the “universe” treats everything and everyone “impartially and indifferent.” It says there is no difference whether you are on the path of verity or falsity, justice or injustice, right or wrong. It says the determining factor of the outcome of your work is simply the level of your effort. The right logic of those who have faith in Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala says “the system of creation supports people who work in the way of truth and reality, in the way of right, justice, and benevolence.” The outcome of doing good is rewarded. We know this is true because Allah tells us so in the Holy Qur’an.

“If you aid Allah, He will aid you.” (47:7)

“Truly Allah does not waste the wages of those who do good.” (12:90)

We have peace of mind when we possess religious faith. Human beings innately seek their own well-being. We work with pleasure to attain it. We are “fearful” even thinking about a future filled with deprivation. Our well-being comes from two things: effort and “confidence in environmental conditions.”

For example, a student’s success comes from their “own effort and the appropriateness or supportiveness of the school environment, which includes the encouragement and appreciation of the school authorities. If a hardworking student has no confidence in his study environment or in his teachers who will grade him at the end of the year, if he fears he will be the target of unjust conduct, he will be filled with apprehension and anxiety every day of the year.” Our duty towards ourself does not cause anxiety. Anxiety comes from doubt and uncertainty. We do not feel doubt or uncertainty about ourself. What causes feelings of anxiety, what we may feel unsure about our “role in relation to, is the world.” People may think that there’s no use in doing good; veracity and trustworthiness are pointless; striving and dutifulness only lead to deprivation… Such thoughts of apprehension, uncertainty and anxiety are terrifying.

But if we have religious faith, we have assurance and confidence because Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala is not out to get us. He’s in charge and appreciates our efforts. We are not apprehensive and anxious over how the universe will act upon us. Thus we have peace of mind. Allah Al-Salaam (The Peace) tells us this in the Holy Qur’an:

“No doubt. In the remembrance of Allah, the hearts find contentment.” (13:28)

Religious faith also results in “a greater enjoyment of ideal pleasures.” There are two kinds of pleasures: material and ideal. “Material pleasures are connected with any of the senses and felt when a relationship is set up between an organ and some external object (the pleasures of the eye in seeing, the ear in hearing, the mouth in tasting, the sense of touch in contact). Ideal pleasures are connected with the depths of the human spirit and conscience, not with any particular organ and not dependent upon a relationship with any external object. Such are the pleasures one feels from beneficence and service, from love and respect, or from one’s own success or that of one’s offspring. These pleasures neither pertain to a particular organ nor arise under the direct influence of an external, material factor.”

Of course, ideal pleasures are “stronger and more enduring than material pleasures.” One of the great ideal pleasures is the pleasure of worshipping Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala. Those people, such as the ‘arifs and devotees of Truth, aim to worship Him with presence, humility, and absorption and are rewarded with such high levels of pleasures from their worship. These pleasures are spoken of as “the relish of faith” and “the sweetness of faith.” Religious “faith has a sweetness above all sweetness. Ideal pleasures are redoubled when such works as scientific study, beneficence, service, and success stem from the religious sense and are carried through for the sake of God, when they fall in the domain of worship,” that is when they are done seeking Allah’s Pleasure.

Social Relationships

We are social beings. That is how Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala created us. We are incapable of satisfying our needs alone. Our life consists of work and the fruits of our labour must be shared with others. Everyone doesn’t do the same job. We work at different jobs so that society can function and everyone can get what they need. Other creatures, who are social beings such as the bee, function through their Allah-given instincts and do not have the ability to oppose and rebel against their preassigned functions. Human beings are free and are able to “work freely as a function and duty.”

Many animals have social needs which are governed by social instincts. Our social needs are demanded from within us and we must meet those needs through education. In order to live a sane life in society we must respect the laws, bounds and rights of each other. We must regard “justice as sacred.” We must be kind to each other. We must wish for each other what we wish for ourselves and not deem acceptable for others what we do not deem acceptable for ourselves. We must have “trust and confidence in one another.” Such confidence is guaranteed due to each other’s spiritual quality and religious faith.

“Each individual should be committed and responsible to his society; each should be as privately pious and honest as he is publicly. All should act with beneficence to one another with the greatest possible degree...All should rise against injustice and oppression and leave the oppressors and the corrupt no room to practice their oppression and corruption. All should venerate ethical values. All should unite with and support others as the members of a body."

“That which above all else honors truth, sanctifies justice, endears hearts to one another, establishes mutual confidence among individuals, causes piety and integrity to penetrate to the depths of the human conscience, invests ethical values with credence, creates courage in the face of oppression, and interlinks and unites all individuals like the members of one body is religious faith. Human beings’ humane manifestations, shining like stars in the sky of a tumultuous human history, are those manifestations welling forth from religious faith.”

Troubles

Life has “joys, delights, gains and successes…It also has suffering, disasters, defeats, losses, hardships and disappointments.” Many “can be averted or obviated,”(2) some after great effort. We must “come to grips with nature, to transform the bitter into the sweet. But some of the vicissitudes of the world, such as old age, cannot be averted or obviated. One advances toward old age, and one’s life flame dies down. The infirmity and weakness of old age, together with the rest of its adversities, give life a grim face. On top of that, the thought of death and non-being, of closing one’s eyes to the world, and of entrusting the world to others causes one anguish of another order.”

With the power of religious faith, we can resist the troubles. We can turn bitter to sweet. We understand “everything in the universe has a fixed valuation.” We are assured that if we respond “to hardships in the proper manner, even though they are irremediable,” we will be recompensed by Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala. We will no longer see old age as the end of our existence. We will spend our time in worship and nearness to Allah. Through the remembrance of Allah, our life can become “more pleasant in old age that in youth.”

“The visage of death is different in the eyes of one with faith; death is no long oblivion and nothingness but is a transfer from an ephemeral world to an enduring one, from a smaller world to a greater one. Death is a transfer from the world of labor and sowing to the world of fruition and harvest. Thus, the individual with faith obviates his anxieties about death through efforts at the good works called in the language of religion ‘acts of devotion.’”

Non-religious people and those without faith experience “psychological illnesses arising from spiritual turmoil and life’s hardships. The stronger and firmer the religious individual’s faith, the greater his immunity to such disorders. One of the features of contemporary life arising from the weakening of the faiths is an increase in mental and nervous disorders.”

“He is the One Who created death and life

in order to test which of you is best in deeds.

And He is The Almighty, The All-Forgiving.” (67:2)

Al-Hamdulillahi Rabbil Alamin!

 

Notes

(1)Ayatullah Murtadha Mutahhari was born on February 2, 1920, in Fariman, Iran, and was martyred on May 1, 1979 in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. He played a major role in reawakening the Islamic consciousness in the people of Iran, guiding and participating in the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the newly formed Islamic government, and as an intellectual Muslim thinker, teacher and writer.

(2) Obviate is defined as to prevent from happening by taking action in advance; neutralize; avoid; remove.

Resource

Mutahhari, Ayatullah Murtadha. (1985). Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man and the Universe. Trans. by R. Campbell. Berkley, CA: Mizan Press. Accessible from Al-Islam.org @ https://www.al-islam.org/fundamentals-islamic-thought-god-man-and-universe-murtadha-mutahhari