Understanding The Prophet's Life
From Issue: 483 [Read full issue]
Trading with Allah
"And everyone goes out in the morning and sells himself, either freeing or destroying himself." [Muslim]
Every day humans are faced with new situations. Every morning we get up to do something. Every day we are either going to obey Allah or we are going to disobey Allah. In essence, every day we are going to be setting ourselves free from the Hell-fire or leading ourselves to the Hell-fire and our own destruction. Even those who sit and seemingly do absolutely nothing are, in reality, actually leading themselves to some result.
The one who is successful is the one who sells himself to Allah or buys his freedom from Allah. Trading with Satan on the other hand can never bring about anything beneficial because, in reality, he has nothing to offer. All he can offer are delusions and promises that end up to be punishment in the Hereafter.
People sell themselves for money, power, lusts and so forth. Many times, they are willing to give up on their dignity for these things. In reality, they are simply selling themselves in exchange for the Hell-fire.
Source:
“Commentary on the Forty Hadith of al-Nawawi” - Jamaal al-Din M. Zarabozo, p. 894-897