Seekers' thoughts

Sabr is truly the most beautiful and greatest quality. From it all else is born. I think people confuse Sabr with the English word and concept of waiting, but I find that to be a mistaken translation and understanding. While waiting is a part of it, I think Sabr, or patience as it is usually translated as, is much more. Sabr is an encompassing quality. In English, patience is defined as “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.” In the words of one Dr Khalid, in Arabic, he says that patience is internal strength.¹ 

Patience, as the English definition points towards, has a meaning of acceptance. Accepting reality, accepting what one is faced with, accepting destiny, accepting – ultimately – the will of Allah. This is why sabr is the greatest quality and the hallmark of the greatest believers, for to be truly Saabir (patient) means to accept whatever God has willed for you. Did Ismail not respond to the words of his father, believing it to be the command and decree of God that Ismail be sacrificed, that “oh father, do as you have been commanded; God Willing, you will find me to be amongst the patient ones.”² Not a word of complaint; no word of defiance; no struggle. Just pure acceptance. To be weak and humble, a servant to the Lord, is what makes us great. That is why the Prophets are the greatest and most formidable, peace be upon them all.

It is this quality above all else that my mother has spoken to me about, and if I were to summarise all of the advice and lessons she has given me all of these years, it would be to develop sabr. She often says that life is nothing except patience. If you have blessings, like a lot of wealth, you need patience to not waste it all away, to control yourself from spending it all and from becoming arrogant, to not lose sight of the blessing you’ve been given; if you are struggling financially, you need patience to bear with the difficulty, to try and find a way through and to not give up. You need patience to deal with your friends and family, with work and everything. 

My mum feels that patience is what is lacking today because everyone wants everything straight away. The fast-paced nature of things has made people lack this important quality. Everything from our phones to our dinner time routines have been set up in a way that makes us more impatient. If the internet lags for a few seconds we become frustrated; if we are called down to eat but the food isn’t right there at the table when we arrive, we become annoyed that we were called down before the food is ready; if we have to look for answers in school rather than the teacher just telling us, we give up. We need everything quick and fast, and with this speeding up we don’t realise how much goes by us and what we are losing. As Allah says in the Qur’an, “By the passing of Time! Indeed man is at loss, except those who believe and perform good deeds and urge one another by Truth and urge one another by Patience.”³ 

But what does patience look like? How do I know if I am patient or impatient? I look to my mother as my living example, someone who you couldn’t get to complain about something and who doesn’t like to hear complaints; someone who doesn’t even like to say that she feels tired or hungry because she is always feeling grateful to God instead. I think today one reason why we may lack patience is because we don’t recognise it, and we don’t know what is good from bad anymore. It would sound odd and strange to us today to hear of someone who is ill or ailed by something who doesn’t make it known or clear. Yet the likes of Al-Ahnaf bin Qais, a great hero of our Islamic past who was a commander during the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and the Caliphs after him, when it was noticed that he lost sight in his eye, said: “it went some forty years ago, I did not complain of it to anyone.”⁴ Can we imagine bearing such hardship? What’s even the need? What’s the point of it?

When the leg of Urwa ibn az-Zubayr, the son of one of the great companions promised paradise, was being amputated, he never made a sound of pain or complaint but instead said: “If You (O Allah) have taken; then you have indeed left something as a remainder; and if You have put to trial; then You have indeed pardoned.”⁵ It’s stated that he did not leave off reading his portion of the Qur’an that night. This was the mindset and the perspective of our great ones: why complain, when the trial is a form of forgiveness. Do you complain when someone is giving you a gift? And forgiveness is a most beautiful gift from Allah. Can you imagine the toughness of such people? 

And that’s the thing with patience. It makes you tough beyond words. But as we are losing patience, we are losing this toughness, too… the result of which is perhaps clear to see around the Muslim world. May Allah make us from among the patient.

1. https://youtu.be/-i1uF3pa0oI?si=uq-o2CurJ3MVqzTu&t=623 ↩︎
2. Qur’an Surah As-Saffat, verse 102 https://quran.com/as-saffat/102 ↩︎
3. Qur’an Surah Al-Asr, verses 1-3 https://quran.com/al-asr ↩︎
4. https://www.wrightstreetmosque.com/readings-from-siyar-alaam-an-nubalaa-patience-resilience-strength-and-bravery/ ↩︎
5. https://www.wrightstreetmosque.com/readings-from-siyar-alaam-an-nubalaa-patience-resilience-strength-and-bravery/ ↩︎