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alladhīna yastaḥibbūna l-ḥayāta d-dunyā ʿalā l-ʾākhirati wa-yaṣuddūna ʿan sabīli llāhi wa-yabghūnahā ʿiwajan ʾulāʾika fī ḍalālin baʿīdin
—those who prefer the life of this world to the Hereafter, and bar [others] from the way of Allah, and seek to make it crooked. They are in extreme error.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah ‘Ibrahim – Verse 3
3. “Those who prefer the life of the world to the Hereafter, and hinder (others) from the path of Allah, and seek to make it crooked. They are in far error.”
To enjoy oneself in this world is permissible, but to prefer this world to the next is a dangerous thing, for ones adherence to this world, necessarily obstructs him from his worship, spending out of belongings, participating in the Holy War, obtaining the allowed profits, truthfulness, and the performance of religious duties. And, eventually, seeking of worldly pleasures paves the way for paganism and is leading a campaign against religion which consequences aberration.
Therefore, the Qur’an tends to introduce the pagans in this verse, and it makes their position quite transparent by mentioning three parts of their characteristics so that everybody can recognize them at first sight. At first, it says:
“Those who prefer the life of the world to the Hereafter…”
And they sacrifice every thing even their faith and the truth in face of the mean interests, passions, and their low desires. Then the Qur’an implies that they are not even content with this, but, in addition to their own seduction, they seek to seduce others as well. They stand in the way of the people in order to obstruct them from the path of Allah. Or they even tend to introduce changes in it as well. In fact, their job is to decorate the low desires and persuade the people to commit sins, frightening them of being honest and pure, while seeking to bring others in line with themselves. Through adding superstitions and all kinds of distortions to it as well as creating dirty and ugly traditions, they try to achieve their objectives.
The verse says:
“…and hinder (others) from the path of Allah, and seek to make it crooked…”
It is obvious that such people distance themselves from the true path in an extensive manner with such qualifications and overt behaviour. Such a state of being misled which makes it an impossibility for them to return to the point of the truth because of its remote distance. However all such conditions and states of mind are the product of their own behaviour. The verse says:
“…They are in far error.”
Incidentally, one must know that obstruction of Allah’s path is not confined to one or two cases. On the contrary, inappropriate propaganda, overt committing of sins, spread of the methods of corruption and of ways of negligence, inciting of skepticism, creating and spreading the means of discord, and spreading of seducing films and publications, misrepresenting the religion of the truth, introducing the wrong kind of people as the identification religious figures, are all among tens of examples of the obstruction of Allah’s path.