Life Purpose

Over the years, one question has bothered me more than any other: what is the purpose of my life? I’ve never felt that I was born just to get educated, find a job, have a family, buy a house, retire comfortably, and then die. There has to be a deeper reason behind it all.

To find this purpose, I looked for meaning in religion, relationships, mastery, and values. I turned to the Holy Quran and came across this verse:

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ (Surah Adh-Dhāriyāt 51:56)

“And I have not created the invisible beings and men for any purpose other than that they may [know and] worship Me.”

At first, I was confused. Should I quit my job and devote myself to constant prayer? That didn’t feel like the whole answer. Then I read another verse:

وَإِذْ قَالَ رَبُّكَ لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الْأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً ۖ قَالُوا أَتَجْعَلُ فِيهَا مَن يُفْسِدُ فِيهَا وَيَسْفِكُ الدِّمَاءَ وَنَحْنُ نُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِكَ وَنُقَدِّسُ لَكَ ۖ قَالَ إِنِّي أَعْلَمُ مَا لَا تَعْلَمُونَ (Surah Al-Baqarah 2:30)

“When your Lord said to the angels, ‘I will place a successive authority on Earth,’ they asked, ‘Will You place upon it one who causes corruption while we declare Your praise?’ He said, ‘Indeed, I know that which you do not know.”

Reading these verses together, I realized humans are meant to be Allah’s representatives in the world. To know Allah and sincerely practice being His representative is, in itself, worship.

That raised another question: who is Allah, and how do I embody this role in my daily life? Through further reflection, I understood that Allah is not like His creation—He is unlimited, beyond space, time, or human qualities. Being His representative is about practicing His attributes—His qualities—in how we live, work, and relate to others. In my background, we’ve learned about the 99 names of Allah since childhood. Suddenly, it clicked: these names are not just labels—they are the qualities we are meant to emulate.

And that’s where clarity began to emerge: the purpose of life is to find Allah, understand our role as His representatives, and practice it in daily life.

In the next part of this blog, I’ll explore how I am trying to embody this in my work, relationships, and every aspect of life.