Comfort of Illusion

{ وَمَا الْحَيَاةُ الدُّنْيَا إِلَّا مَتَاعُ الْغُرُورِ }

{And this life of the lower word is only a comfort of illusion/ vain provision (causing negligence)} 3-185

On the Current Situation of this Lower World

There is a state of general mental disturbance today. And this abnormality has already lasted several centuries. The present Western civilisation may (also) disappear without traces.
René Guénon 1927, CMW

and:
It is easy for human beings to be engaged in all kinds of delusions if their sense of the ethical is not rooted in the Owner of this universe.
Khaled Abou El Fadl

Fate of earlier people and civilisations

{ أَوَلَمْ يَسِيرُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ فَيَنظُرُوا كَيْفَ كَانَ عَاقِبَةُ الَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِهِمْ }

{Have they not travelled in the earth and seen what was the end of those before them? They were superior to them in strength, they tilled the soil and populated it in greater numbers than these have built on it, and there came to them their messengers with clear arguments (proofs); Surely Allah wronged them not, but they did wrong themselves.} 30-9

Here is this lower, transient life (dunyā), and there is the Greater Life or Greater World (ākhira), which is the Real Life.
Islam maintains that the events of the Next Life are immensely important and prepares for it - in contrast to the current materialistic, scientistic, flattened civilisation, (materialism = din al-maddiyya).

Flattened in the sense of accepting one dimension only, the horizontal dimension, ignorant and denying the vertical dimension pointing to the heavenly oceans, which are oceans of mercy and beauty. Islam is wisdom, justice, compassion and benevolence.

Islam has the most prescient knowledge about the Heavens and the earth, about man and his becoming. Allah (God) is true, He is the Truth, what they invent is the spray on the seas.

{ قَالَ رَبِّي يَعْلَمُ القَوْلَ فِي السَّمَاءِ وَالأَرْضِ وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ العَلِيمُ }

{He said: My Lord knows what is spoken in the heaven and the earth, and He is the Hearing, the Knowing.}
21-4

Prison or Paradise

الدُّنْيَا سِجْنُ الْمُؤْمِنِ وَجَنَّةُ الْكَافِرِ

”This (lower) life is the believer's prison and the disbeliever's paradise.” Hadith

One very important aspect of the Islamic message is Allah warning regarding the life of the world, this earthly life.

حُفَّتِ الْجَنَّةُ بِالْمَكَارِهِ وَحُفَّتِ النَّارُ بِالشَّهَوَاتِ

"Paradise is surrounded by hardships/ adversity and the Hell-Fire is surrounded by temptations." Hadith

Forgetting the Priorities

{ مِنكُم مَن يُرِيدُ الدُّنْيَا وَمِنكُم مَن يُرِيدُ الْآخِرَةَ }

{Among you are some that hanker after this world and some that desire the Hereafter.} 3-152

Why do they thirst after this lowly world?

It is {for their considering things equal to God without authoritative evidence} 3-151

or
{because they set up with Allah that for which He has sent down no authority}

It is here called a 'lowly life' (dunya) or world because it is what you reach first from the low-hanging branches of a tree. It is what is closest to your appetite and the demands of your ego.

In Islam the dunya is accepted as part of life, but in awareness of its temptations and its attractiveness. Although it presents itself (by Allah's permission) as something beautiful, it is transient and ephemeral (Allah is permanent and real), but the dunya is also our 'playing-field' where we are tested permanently to do good and to do better - in our relations to the others and foremost in out relation to Allah (may His Majesty be exalted) .

May Allah guide us all and support us. And we seek help from {the best of helpers}.

1. And Still the World Is Beautiful

The Quran tells us that the world is beautiful.

{And the Earth, We spread it out, and cast therein firmly set mountains and We have made to grow therein of all beautiful kinds; to give sight and as a reminder to every servant who turns to Allah.}
Surat Qaf 50-7/8

And you also should present yourself / your soul/ as beautiful:

{This is a message (and admonition) and verily, for the righteous, is a beautiful place of (final) return, Gardens of Eternity, whose doors will (ever) be open to them…} 38-49/50

2. Who Takes His Desire as a God

Negativity and the obsession with what is wrong (is like an idol) and it is the projection of our own base desires.

{Have you not seen him who takes his desire as a god?}

{Have you seen he who has taken as his god his [own] desire, and Allah has sent him astray due to knowledge and has set a seal upon his hearing and his heart and put over his vision a veil? So who will guide him after Allah ? Then will you not be reminded?} 45-23

{And they say: There is nothing but our life in this world; we live and die and nothing destroys us but time, and they have no knowledge of that; they only conjecture.} 45-24