Purpose

Allah created everything for a purpose, and each individual thing manifests its purpose. For example, an apple tree’s purpose is to grow apples. A dog’s job is to act like a dog, to bark and to protect. A human being’s purpose is also defined by Allah. Allah said,

“I created the jinn [hidden beings] and human beings only that they may connect and devote themselves to Me.” (Qur’an 51:56, translated by Murshid Shaykh Taner Vargonen Ansari)

This means getting to know Allah. In order to do our job of getting to know Allah, we must study His attributes and get closer to Him. We get closer to Allah by doing things He likes us to do and having the manners He likes us to have. For this He gave us Muhammad (peace be upon him) as an example. He made him His lover. If we follow Muhammad’s (pbuh) example, we will also be Allah’s lovers because we will be doing the things that He likes us to do. There are at least two hundred virtues of the Prophet (pbuh) which sufis should have. In fact every human being should manifest these.