Answer
Asalamu Alaikum,
Thank you for contacting About Islam with your question.
Nouman Ali Khan addresses this question in the video below:
Transcript:
Great question. It’s actually a beautiful question and Allah (Azza wajal) describes in the ayah that I recited before [quoting Quran in Arabic]. Right? It’s a beautiful answer. Allah (Azza wajal) is saying which of the two sides deserves peace more?
In other words, there is such a thing as people finding peace once in a while in other than Islam. But who deserves consistent, constant, lifelong peace?
These are people who truly came to believe and did not violate the rights of their faith by doing bad things, by doing the wrong thing.
Now, I tell you, Buddhists can tell you that they sit and some of them can sit for like for hours in meditation in one position and don’t move. And you look at them: ah, this guy is really peaceful. He’s really like, he’s calmed down. And he finds a lot of peace in it.
And people do yoga and find peace in that too, right? And people sit in a sauna and find peace. Some people listen to classical music and they find peace. So, if you want to talk about somebody finding peace, they say, I find peace in different things.
Somebody likes to sit at the beach and just look at the ocean waves, and they find peace. But that is just the calmness of emotions, temporarily. What we’re talking about when we say peace is actually number one [Arabic]: it’s the opposite of fear.
Your concerns, your grievances, your negative emotions aren’t just taken away for a little while. You have a constant source of putting those things in perspective. For a lot of practices of peace, you know what people do?
They like to forget their reality. It’s very important to know in other than faith, other than Allah, people like to forget their reality. So, a lot of people find peace when they get drunk. You know why? Because when they’re drunk, they can’t think. So, they forget about their problems.
A lot of people find peace when they take drugs. Because when they take drugs, their mind is gone. So, they don’t have to worry about their problems. A lot of people find peace only by playing video games or watching movies.
Because when they’re playing the video game and watching the movie, they’re not thinking about their own life. So, it’s happy time. So, as soon as it ends, they’re like oh, I don’t want to face reality again, put the next movie on and I’ll put the next one on and put this video game on.
And they keep, you know, cycling these things because their own reality they can’t face. The difference with us is our faith, iman, if you really have it, you don’t have to run from reality. You can face reality and still be at peace.
You see all other options, all other avenues of finding peace, they want you to get away from life, you know? And what do people do when they want to find peace, they take a vacation. They go away from everything. They know there’s hardly a vacation.
What do we do when we need to find peace? We go into jumah. We go towards people and pray to Allah together. That’s what we do, right? So, we face reality and this is the beauty of our faith. Some peace you will find but nothing like Allah will give you inside of this deen.
I hope this helps answer your question. You can also check out more from Muslim Speakers at the link here.
Walaikum Asalam. Please keep in touch.
(From Ask About Islam archive)
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