Omar Suleiman

The material world disappointed early on so that we could see beyond it.

And I often tell people that, you know,

There are many that grow up in tragedy, orphan children, refugees, that grow up and do incredible things because they immediately see past the

facade they see through all of the material promises of this world the deception of it and that you can choose to be bitter as a result of that or you can choose to be better and i think that for me i had to consciously make that decision that i was going to live a life of prayer i was going to live a life of charity i was going to live a life of commitment and

in that process, invest in something that's greater, invest in something that doesn't disappoint.

And so I believe in God, I believe in the hereafter, and I believe that God will not let any trial or effort in this life go to waste without it being repaid in the hereafter.

And so I work towards that.

And so life and death

I understood existence to be transcendent early on.

That if I believed that there was nothing to life except for life, I would be a very bitter person.

But because I know that there is more to it than this, I'm able to exist in it without being depressed by it.

So the Qur'an tells us that God brought us from the darkness of the womb into this life.

You were nothing but a dirty drop of fluid and you became this fully proportioned human being from the darkness of the womb.

You come into this life, you experience it, and then you go to the darkness of the grave only to be resurrected once again.

And that we are souls with bodies, not bodies with souls.

And there's a huge difference between those two things.

This is the vehicle that contains us here.

This is the material world that we encounter here, but we are not this, and this is not our entire existence.

And so the soul continues.

This is a life in which we seek to worship him and seek to live in accordance with the purpose that he has set out for us.