9 Allah Loves

Patience

Allah mentions in the Qur’an وَاللهُ يُحِبُّ الصَّابِرِينَ Allah loves those who are patient. He loves those people who are engaged in patience. The connection of patience to trust is obvious, we can’t be patient with Allah if we don’t trust Him. We can’t be patient with how things are going in life until we understand that there is someone who has control of our life. We are not going to be able to restrain ourselves from acting out unless we have a solid understanding that Allah is acting in a way that is in our best favour. This connection between ṣabr and tawakkul is necessary and Allah mentions that He loves those who trust Him and loves those who are patient.

Asking Allah to make us a patient person is a good thing, asking Allah for the quality of ṣabr that makes us amongst those who are patient is a good thing. However, patience is not just restricted to hard times: patience is something that we practice throughout our lives with Allah. How do we do so? Patience in hardship is obvious. We earn Allah’s love when we are patient in hardship because we choose to restrain ourselves for His reward and for His pleasure instead.

ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd (Allah’s mercy be upon him) said something very profound in this regard, “Most people on the Day of Judgment don’t enter Jannah because of some good deeds that they did but because of the hardship that they faced and the patience that they showed in response to it.” So we prepare our whole life and a major trial is thrust upon us, but we express our patience with Allah, our love of Allah despite that hardship, purely based upon the foundation of trust (tawakkul) and that allows us to attain the ultimate reward from Allah. To receive Allah’s pleasure on the Day of Judgement for our patience in hardship is tremendous, therefore, we hold ourselves back and practise restraint because we see His pleasure rather than our own misfortunes, we see Allah’s goal for us rather than our immediate hardship. That goal is able to see us through the imminent hardship, for with patience comes ease.

Patience with regards to our own desires (shahwah) is another great virtue. We hold ourselves back from acting upon our lusts and our desires in ways that are impermissible. That’s why Allah calls fasting (s̩awm) patience and says وَاسْتَعِينُوا بِالصَّبْرِ وَالصَّلَاةِ, seek closeness through patience and prayer. What the scholars say is that the word “patience” is actually replacing the word “fasting” here.

The act that we should also be engaged in, is restraining ourselves in times of ease. When people lose patience in times of ease, they act upon those desires as quickly as they can because they think that they only live once. But that is not true, we know that our life is eternal, our days may be numbered in this world but the Hereafter is for eternity. So why do we rush to act upon those desires and to live out all of our lusts and try to consume all the blessings that are around us or all the trials disguised as blessings around us because we think we are not going to live again after this?

To be patient in our ease and patient with our desires by restraining ourselves because we know that the reward Allah guaranteed us in the Hereafter is far greater than anything that we could have in this life. The element of Allah’s pleasure and reward is able to get us through our ease just as it is able to get us through hardship.

The last form of patience that the scholars have mentioned is the patience in our worship with Allah. If we are not patient in worshipping Allah and upholding the commands of Allah upon us then that shows a lack of regard for Allah. Patience in the maintenance of those acts of worship are a form of expression that we are willing to stay the course for the sake of Allah because we want to see these good deeds accepted, done correctly and done with iḥsān, in a way that shows excellence and in return for that وَاللهُ يُحِبُّ الصَّابِرِينَ, and Allah loves the patient. May Allah make us amongst them. Āmīn.