People generally want to be free and comfortable at every stage of their lives. To do whatever they want whenever they want without being subject to any kind of discipline, compulsion or restriction… To sleep and wake up whenever they want; to do their works whenever they feel like or to delay them if they don't; to not talk if they don't feel like talking: to not think if they don’t feel like thinking; to not use their willpower if they don’t feel like using it and to act discretionary in any similar situation…
However, freedom is nice only within certain limits. Otherwise, “freedom” does not mean being thoughtless, uncaring, indifferent or irritable. Likewise, a person's making sacrifices for the others he lives together with, his being thoughtful for others and giving priority to the necessary things would not mean “limitation of his freedom”. Displaying social ethics is something that beautifies and exalts the person, not something that limits him.
Think about someone who speaks loudly, who turns on the volume of the music or the television to the highest level by saying “I cannot limit my freedom, my comfort is the only thing that matters”, while there is someone sleeping next to him, or some other people making noise at home in the middle of the night without thinking about their neighbours...
No one would like to be object to such thoughtless people or to encounter the discomfort they cause for people around them. But some people, while they think this way for themselves, can still act in the same manner towards others every easily.
There is only one way to eliminate this behavioural disorder in people and it is to abide by the morality of the Quran. The Quran makes the people experience the “freedom” they are looking for in the most perfect way and this freedom does not disturb anyone. Therefore, within the moral limits defined by Allah, the believers have the comfort to live a free life to the utmost.
Being Muslim means, using conscience. Being Muslim means, using willpower, using mind, compelling lower self and winning over the lower self. Therefore, although the believer is the most free and comfortable person of the world, he determines his preferences throughout his life according to his conscience. His morality would not let him sleep whenever he feels like, eat whenever he feels like, rest whenever he feels like and work if he feels like. His actual measure is “to earn the most of Allah's approval”. He evaluates the happenings around him with his mind and conscience and directs himself to the subject which he considers to be the most auspicious, the wisest, the most beneficial and urgent.
Consequently, one might make concession from his freedom by keeping the needs of others in front of his own when required, but this is the real freedom which will make him .jpg)
actually happy. Otherwise, one cannot be happy by obtaining his own desires knowing that he disturbs the others. One can only be really free if he acts according to his conscience and only this makes him happy.
That is because, contrary to the widely accepted approach, freedom is not a feeling that can be experienced with sole physical freedom of a person. It is the spiritual freedom that really matters. The real freedom is the comfort, contentment, safety and peace Allah gives to the hearts and souls of people as a whole. This is directly related with the faith, devotion, trust and submission of that person.
Consequently, the real freedom and happiness is not doing whatever you want, but to live by the morality most suitable to the approval of Allah. The spiritual freedom brought by this morality is a great blessing which can never be compared with the unlimited physical freedom one experiences without thinking. And Allah has bestowed this blessing only to the believers.
Allah has revealed the way to real happiness in the Qur'an as follows:
".. Only in the remembrance of Allah can the heart find peace" (Surat Ar-Rad:28)
