Allaah has made patience like a horse that
never gets tired, an army that can never be defeated and
a well-fortified fortress that can never be destroyed. Patience is a mount that
whoever rides it will never go astray. Patience and victory are twin brothers.
The Prophet (may Allaah
exalt his mention and render him safe from evil) said: “Victory comes with patience.”[1] Patience is of more help to the one
who has it than men, as it helps without any need for equipment or numbers; and
the status of patience in relation to victory is like the status of the head in
relation to the body. It is the means of salvation and success. It is the
virtue a person needs in his religion and worldly life. The state of a man is
either he has to be patient over something that is obligatory upon him to
comply with or implement, or a prohibition that is obligatory upon him to
eschew and abandon, or a decree which he has to be patient over or a blessing,
which he must express gratitude to the One Who blessed him with it.
If these states are
inseparable from him, it means that patience is obligatory until death. Life
cannot be upright without patience; it is the cure for the problems of this
abode of affliction. Patience is the provision of the fighter when victory is
delayed and not forthcoming; the provision of the caller when people delay in
responding to the call and the provision of the scholar when people consider
his knowledge to be strange. In fact, it is the provision of the old and young,
man and woman. It was recorded in Kitaab
az-Zuhd on the authority of ‘Umar bin al-Khattaab that he said: “We found
the best of our lives through patience.”[2]
Allaah has described
the patient people with some attributes and distinguished them with
characteristics that others beside them do not have. He mentioned patience in
about ninety places in the noble Qur’aan; and He attached abundant degrees and
blessings to patience and made these degrees and blessings the benefit of
patience. The people of patience are in companionship with Allaah. With
patience, they will attain the good in this world and the hereafter; and
through it, they will obtain Allaah’s hidden and apparent blessing. Allaah has
made leadership in the religion conditional upon patience and certain faith.
Allaah the Exalted said: “And We made from among them leaders guiding by Our command
when they were patient and [when] they were certain of Our signs.”[3]
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said: “Through patience and certain faith, leadership
in the religion will be attained.”[4]
Source: Patience is a Shining Light, p. 7-8 by Shaykh Muhammad Saalih
al-Munajjid. Translated by Abdus-Samee’ Abdus-Salaam.
[1] Saheeh: He is referring to the hadeeth recorded by Ahmad in his
Musnad (1/307); no. 2804, al-Haakim in al-Mustadrak (3/624); no. 6304, at-Tabaraanee
in al-Mu‘jam al-Kabeer (11/123); no. 11243 and al-Bayhaqee in Shu‘ab al-Eemaan
(7/203). It was classified authentic by al-Albaanee in Saheeh al-Jaami‘ (6806
[2] Recorded by Ibn Mubaarak in
az-Zuhd (1/222), Ahmad in az-Zuhd
(1/117), Aboo Nu‘aym in Hilyah al-Awliyaa’ (1/50); al-Bukhaaree also recorded
it in a suspended form in his authentic collection (5/2375)
[3] Soorah as-Sajdah:24
[4] See Majmoo‘ al-Fataawaa by
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (3/358)
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