The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary

by Seyyed Hossein Nasr

“Who is the most intelligent of believers?” the Prophet replied, “The most frequent in recalling death, and the best prepared for what follows it, they are the most intelligent.”

“Worship is of three kinds: some people worship God out of fear, and that is the worship of slaves; other people worship God seeking reward, and that is the worship of hirelings; and some people worship God out of love, and that is the worship of those who are free, and that is the most excellent worship”

True worship or servitude (ʿibādah) is understood by some to constitute the greatest degree of humility and self-effacement before God (Aj), which is necessary in order to recognize one’s complete reliance upon Him, since God is the Rich, and you are the poor

The request for God’s help can thus be seen as a request for further aid in worshipping and serving Him and in all of one’s affairs (Aj, IK), a request founded upon the acknowledgment that one is never independent of God (Ṭb) and that it is only through His assistance that one can worship Him, not through one’s own power and strength

From a religious perspective, it is a middle way that avoids worldliness, on the one hand, and extreme asceticism, on the other. It thus connotes a way of life that combines the outward way of the Law with the inward way of spirituality, or the exoteric with the esoteric, so that one’s outward nature is in servitude, while one’s inner nature is free

All things eventually return to God, but in various ways and by various means, as in 67:22: Is one who walks with his face stooped down more guided, or one who walks upright upon a straight path? (see

God does not wrong human beings in the least, but rather human beings wrong themselves