Patience

Patience is one of the most important qualities demanded of those who claim to love Allâh, as the degree of patience determines those who are sincere in their claim and those who are not. The degree of patience needed to endure hardship and difficulties in order to please the Beloved proves the sincerity of one’s love.

It is through faith that we know the reality of Allâh’s commands and prohibitions, or reward and punishment, and it is through patience that we carry out His instructions and abstain from that which He has prohibited.

The loss of a loved one is a time when a person may be overwhelmed with grief, and many customs surrounding bereavement reflect the depth of the feeling of loss. Wailing, eulogizing (i.e. praising the deceased excessively) and tearing one’s garments are all customs which were well known at the time of Jâhiliyyah, and are still common among some Muslims.

‘Umar ibn al-Khattâb (RA) said: “The best days we ever lived were by virtue of patience, and if patience were to take the shape of a man, he would be a noble and generous man.”

The degree of difficulty in abstaining from some things depends on the strength of one’s motive and one’s ability to do the action in question. Whoever has no motive to kill, or steal, or drink alcohol, or whatever, and at the same time in not able to do it, will find it very easy to exercise patience in abstaining from those things. Whoever has a strong motive to commit a wrong action and has the means to do so, will face great difficulty in exercising enough patience to abstain.

At any given moment, a person is in a situation where he has to obey a command of Allâh, or he has to stay away from something which Allâh has prohibited, or he has to accept a decree of Allâh, or he has to give thanks (show gratitude) for a blessing which he has received from Allâh. All of these situations demand patience, so up until the time of death, no-one can do without patience.

As patience is fard (obligatory), Allâh has provided us with ways and means of obtaining and strengthening the quality of patience, for He has never instructed us to do something without providing us with help and support to do it, and ways and means of achieving it. He has never created a disease without creating a cure for it, and He has guaranteed cure when medicine is used. Even so, patience is difficult, but it is not impossible to attain

Bad patience means having patience in keeping away from Allâh and His love and His will, because this prevents a person from fulfilling his potential of attaining perfection and doing what he was created for.

Patience can also be divided into categories following the five categories of deeds, namely wâjib (obligatory), mandûb (encouraged), mahdhûr (forbidden), makrûh (disliked) and mubâh (permissible).