How to Muslim

What Is the Purpose of Life in Islam?

Islam’s answer is direct. You were created to know Allah and to worship Him alone: “And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me” (Quran 51:56). The rest of this page is the reasoning behind that answer, and what to do once you accept it.

Purpose of life

So… why am I here?

Your eyes are for seeing. Your lungs are for breathing. Every part of you has a job, and you have never once doubted that. So it is a fair question to ask what the whole of you is for.

Allah did not make you to wander through life with no direction. He gave you something to do: know Him, worship Him alone, and live the way He showed you. That is what turns an ordinary life into one that means something, and it is where honesty, kindness, charity and looking after the people around you come from.

Worship belongs to Him and to nothing else. Not idols, not the sun or the stars, not people, not even prophets. There is no middleman and no appointment to book. You can speak to Him directly, right now, from wherever you happen to be sitting.

Signs of purpose in creation

Where did you come from? Why are you here? Where are you going? Three questions, and no life gets to skip them. The answer starts with noticing that you are not an accident.

“Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the day and night, there are signs for people of reason.”
Quran 3:190
“This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah.”
Quran 2:2

So… what do I do now?

Seeing the signs is the easy part. The test is what you do once you have seen them.

Submitting to Allah is what Islam means. The word is literally that: submission to the will of God. It is open to anyone. Your race, your background, your money and your past do not bar you from it.

You enter by saying the testimony of faith, and meaning it:

أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ

Ash-hadu alla ilaha illa Allah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasulullah.

I testify that there is no god worthy of worship except Allah, and I testify that Muhammad is Allah’s Messenger.

Isn’t it time to fulfil your purpose?

Read further, get a free Quran, or talk it through with someone who has been where you are.

Read our New Muslim Guide Free, and written for the first year rather than the tenth.

Where to next

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Where to take this further.

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