Assalamualaikum Wr Wb,
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. O Allah, we ask for your peace and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad SAW. Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list. InshaAllah this email finds you and your family in the best of health and imaan. May the peace and blessings of Allah SWT be upon you and your family, inshaAllah.
“Whoever persists in being patient, God will make him patient. Nobody can be given a blessing better and greater than patience.” (Al-Bukhari)
We’re frequently reminded, in the Quran of the virtues and beauty of sabr. Of “صبر جميل” a beautiful patience. But is patience really beautiful? How can patience be beautiful when the very essence of patience entails enduring tough times?
The beauty of patience lies within enduring calamities whilst striving to normalize your life and carry on as if things are okay. To live life whilst being beautifully patient is a treasure.
It’s a characteristic embodied by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and his companions. It’s a characteristic that all the prophets had held very closely. Had it not been for their beautiful patience, they would never have been victorious. ‘How can patience be beautiful when the very essence of patience entails
enduring tough times?’
The way to show patience with such a test is to always be grateful; to know Allah is the source of our blessings; to fight pride and ego, and to fight the temptation to show
off.
Having sabr with blessings is also shown by utilizing the good things Allah gave us – if it is money, do we spend it freely in the way of Allah, or do we hold back? If it is
knowledge, or free time, or good health, or youthfulness, how do we use these blessings? It is not always easy to be generous with those blessings, and to use them for Allah rather than the ego – that is a great test too.
The Qur’an separates the riches and luxuries of this world from the values which Allah approves of. It states that Allah grants wealth or poverty to
whomever He wills, out of His mercy, and that it is not an indication of whether He is pleased or displeased with them. This is because often a person’s wealth, position and offspring can in fact be a trial and test for them.
Allah says in the Qur‘an:
‘Your riches and your children may be a trial: whereas Allah, with Him is the highest reward. So fear Allah as much as ye can; listen and obey; and spend in charity for the benefit of
your own souls. And those saved from the covetousness of their own souls, – they are the ones that achieve prosperity.’
{64:15-16}
Allah tests his servants with wealth and with poverty, and each will be rewarded or punished according to how they conduct themselves. On the Day of
Judgment, a person will be asked about how he or she acquired their wealth and how they spent it, and will be judged on whether or not they were grateful to Allah for it. The wealthier a person is, the more responsibility that wealth carries.
Allah warns the believers that: ‘Certainly, We shall test you with fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits; but give glad tidings to those who
persevere, – those who say, when a misfortune strikes them, “Surely to Allah we belong, and surely to Him we return;” these are the ones on whom blessings from their Lord descend, and mercy, and these are the ones who are rightly guided.’
Thus, a true believer shows gratitude and thankfulness for the countless blessings bestowed on them by Allah and displays patience and submission during
times of poverty and affliction. Those who are wealthy may enjoy their affluence in this life, however, they may be denied the wealth of the hereafter, which is far better and eternal.
The words of Allah (the Qur’an) and the Sunnah should be
our guides, not the desires of the society surrounding us, which places great value on wealth and materialism. We are merely travelers in this world and we will soon move on. What we will take with us from this world will be our good deeds. They will be our wealth on the Day of Judgment and they are what we will be judged on. He whose deeds are heavy on the scale, will have succeeded and gained something that all the wealth of this world cannot buy, the pleasure of his Lord and eternal
paradise.
"If you expect the blessings from Allah, be kind to His people."
