The
Secret Happiness
So important is the
concept of ‘happiness’ in our lives that many people – even
dating back to the days of the Greek philosophers – considered its
pursuit to be the very purpose of existence.
Indeed, the
Qur’an itself speaks of happiness as being one of the rewards of
those whom Allah chooses to admit to Paradise. He says of the martyrs
in Aal-’Imraan, verse 170,
فَرِحِينَ
بِمَا آَتَاهُمُ اللَّهُ مِنْ فَضْلِهِ
They
rejoice in what Allah has bestowed upon them of
His Bounty
And of the reward of the
pious believers [al-Insaan, verse 11],
فَوَقَاهُمُ
اللَّهُ شَرَّ ذَلِكَ الْيَوْمِ
وَلَقَّاهُمْ نَضْرَةً وَسُرُورًا
So,
Allah saved them from the evil of that Day and gave them a light of
beauty and joy.
What becomes immediately
apparent upon reading the Arabic text (but once again obscured in the
translation) is that two very different words have been used to
convey the idea of happiness: فَرِحِينَ
fariheena, which is conjugated from the noun
فَرَح
farah, and سُرُور
suroor, and this is prevalent throughout
the Qur’an. This is because there are two very different types of
happiness being referred to.
فَرَح
farah generally refers to transitory
delights or pleasures, as is the case in bodily or worldly pleasure.
For this reason, most times that فَرَح
farah appears in the Qur’an, it is
being censured, as in the story of Qarun [al-Qasas, verse 76],
إِنَّ
اللهَ لا يُحِبُّ الَفِرحِينَ
Indeed,
Allaah does not like the fariheen
But when the
source of the farah is specified in the Qur’an, as in the
verse from Aal-’Imraan mentioned above, the meaning becomes
restricted (muqayyad) and it is no longer censured.
But
perhaps a greater distinction between the two lies in the
manifestation of the happiness. Whereas the expression of farah
is external and with clear outward signs, suroor refers to the
expansion of one’s heart with delight or pleasure wherein is quiet
or tranquility, and as such it has no external sign. This is
indicated by the root from which the word stems – س
ر seen raa’ – the same root as the
word سرّ
sirr, or secret. So suroor is a secret
happiness, known to one’s heart but not always seen by others, as
Ibn ‘Abbas said in reference to the above verse from al-Insaan,
“The نضرة
nadrah is on their faces, and the سرور
suroor is in their hearts.”
Such
distinctions exemplify yet another example in which the translation
fails and the original prevails.
Courtesy of:
ArabicGems