Principle Regarding Patience -Ibne Taymiyyah

8/10/2019 Principle Regarding Patience -Ibne Taymiyyah

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Principle Regarding Patience & Gratitude Shaykh al -Islm ibnTaymyyah (rahmahullh)

A lecture delivered by our noble brother Abu Iyd Amjad Rafq(hafidhahullh) Audio courtesy of www.salafisounds.com [Slightly edited for brevity and fluidity]

To proceed, then the lecture that I have chosen for this conference is asmall treatise by Shaykh al- Islm Ibn Taymyyah (rahmahullh), andthe title of it is A Principle Regarding Patience and Gratitude, and thisrislah, it is only ten pages long, but it contains such amazing benefits

for a believer in his mn and in his relationship with Allh (subhnahuwa tala), in the way that he deals and inte racts with al- qad wa al -qadr;with what Allh has decreed. Really it is something that a person shouldread every day if possible, if not then every week if possible, and if notthen every month if possible. Thus when you read, or when you listen towhat Shaykh al- Islm Ibn Taymyyah (rahmahullh), presents andadvises the believer as to how to deal with a certain type of harm that isgoing to come his way, then he will recognise how great and amazingthese words actually are, and he will attend to them and he will readthem and re-read them and remind himself; so this is the value of this

particular short treatise.

So the Shaykh, (rahmahullaah), he begins, and in fact Ill give anoverview of the rislah first. He first of all mentions the differentcategories of al-sabr, different types of sabr, and then after that heexplains twenty different points, or twenty different pieces of advice asto how a Muslim, a believer, how he deals with one specific type of

patience; so how he builds a specific type of patience, and he beginsthen by saying that Allh (subhnahu wa tala), that he has made for his

believing servants, that every single position, every manzila that aservant finds himself in, then Allh (subhnahu wa tala) has made thatmanzila, that particular situation that he is in, at any one point in time to

be goodness for him, it is khayr. Meaning that every situation, every
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single situation that a believer finds himself in, is khayr for him, and thisis because Allh (subhnahu wa tala) is cons tantly showering hisfavours upon him, and whether what comes to him from Allh issomething that he likes or dislikes, it is nevertheless a favour.So meaning, if something comes to you and you dislike it, in reality it isa favour from Allh, and if some thing comes to you and your soul likesit and is inclined towards it, it is obviously a favour from Allh, but herehe made no distinction between things that you like and things that youdislike, as it relates to what Allh is putting in front of you, or what he is

putting you through it is a nimah, it all depends upon whether yourecognise it to be a nimah, and that is your perception in your eyes.

So then he says, after this, Allh (subhnahu wa tala), everything fromhis qad, every single qad tha t He brings for His servants, and everysingle, the aqdr, the things that He decrees for them and which hedetermines for them is, and he uses the word matjir; matjir heremeans it is a merchandise, so in other words, everything that comes toyou, you experience, whether your soul likes it or dislikes it, andeverything from al- qad wa al -qadr, when it comes to you at itsappointed time, it is merchandise.These are goods which Allh has come and presented right in front ofyou, and the meaning here is that these goods are supposed to be used byyou to profit and trade, and to succeed in this trade and to make profit,and these are ways and paths by which you reach Allh and arrive atAllh, and this is in essence the meaning of the hadth which is repo rtedin the Sahh, from the Messenger (sallAllhu alayhi wa sallam), that hesaid:

How amazing is the affair of the believer, indeed the whole of his affair

is goodness,

That no decree or qad does Allh judge for him except that is good forhim.


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If something good comes to him then he is grateful, and this is better forhim, and if some harm comes to him, then he has patience and this is

better for him. (Sahh Muslim #2999)

So in reality the rest of what Shaykh al- Islm Ibn Taymyyah(rahmahullh) says is an explanation and clarification of this hadth.Thus he says, this hadth, it includes every single qad of Allh(subhnahu wa tala); meaning nothing is left out of this hadth, as itrelates to what Allh has decreed upon His believing s ervant; and so itmeans that everything is khayr, everything that comes to you is khayr,and when he has patience upon that which is harmful to him, ordislikeable to him, and likewise when he is grateful to the things which

are likeable to him, then all o f this is from the mn; it enters into in themeaning ofmn, which Allh has commanded us to have in the Qurnin abundance, when He says,O you who believe, believe in Allh and do righteous deeds. And so on and so forth, and this is why some of the Salaf they used tosay,mn is in two halves, one half which is sabr, and one half which is gratitude and being grateful. And then he mentioned the yah in the Qurn,

Indeed in this is a sign for every sabr (one who has habit anddeveloped patience as a skill and a virtue) and likewise for the onewho is shakr (the one who is grateful to Allh.) (Surah Ibrahim: 5)

And this yah occurs in the Qurn four times.

So then he says, when a servant thinks about mn and he reflects about mn itself, he will see that the whole of mn is made up of these twothings; either it is sabr showing patience, or it is showing shukr and

being grateful. This is the whole of mn.

Then he explains that sabr itself is of three types. So he says the first one


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is the sabr upon the obedience to Allh (subhnahu wa tala); so heshows sabr up until he performs the act of obedience, so meaning thatsabr is something that he shows beforehand, and he continues upon thatup until the act of obedience he is ordered to perform is fulfilled.

Then he says that a servant is not able to do that which he is commandedwith except after showing sabr and musbarah, and after making jihd,striving against his enemy, which is internal and the enemy which isexternal; and this means his soul, because there is in his soul that whichis an enemy to him, and likewise it refers to the other enemy outside ofhim which is the Shaytn, and it can also refer to other people who

prevent him and hinder him. So when he makes a striving and shows

sabr then this is what is meant by having patience upon obedience toAllh (subhnahu wa tala), and so this patience is related to doingthings which are wjib and doing things which are mus tahabb, so this isthe type of patience shown in respect to that.

The second type is the sabr that he shows in keeping away from thethings which are harm and which are prohibited, and this is becauseagain there are three things; a soul inside him which invites him to theevil, and likewise there are shaytn who beautify the evil to him and

beautify to him disobedience, and likewise there are the evilcompanions, the evil friendship and the evil associates; be they those

people who are upon sin, or be they those people who are uponinnovation and these people surround him and order him withdisobedience, and they order him to depart from what Allh hascommanded him with, and so therefore to the extent that he has this sabr,and this sabr is strong within him, then to that extent will he be inobedience to Allh.He quotes a nice statement from one of the Salaf, The righteous deeds are done by both the righteous and the sinful person. So the righteous deeds are easy, the one who is a sinner and the one whois a righteous pious person, they both do the righteous deeds, there is nodistinction there between one or the other, but, then he says, but onlyone who abandons disobedience is the Siddque, and the Siddque means


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the one who is true to Allh in hi s speech, in his belief, in his deed, inhis intent in everything.

He is truthful. So that is the distinction between the one who is Siddqueand the one who does righteous deeds; because righteous deeds are easyto do they, are not difficult to do, but the struggle and the sabr is when itcomes to abandoning disobedience and that is what distinguishes

between the Siddque and the one who is not like that; and that is whyyou see in the Qurn Allh (subhnahu wa tala) mentioning thosecategories of people; the Prophets, and after them he mentions theSiddqn, because they are the most like the Prophets, and then hementions after them the martyrs and the righteous and so on and so

forth.

So this is the second type, and as for the third type, which is having sabrupon those things which afflict him from Allhs decree, from the qadof Allh, this itself is of two types; and the first one is when calamitiescome to him which no other human being has any choice in or has anyinvolvement in, and this is for example, sickness or disease. So diseaseis from Allh (subhnahu wa tala) or calamities which do not involvethe choice of another person. So these come to him, and he refers tothem as al- masib al -samwyyah, meaning the heavenly calamities,mean ing those which come from Allh, but there is no choice for anyindividual in that.

So they come to him and he, Ibn Taymyyah says, these are very easy toshow sabr. To show sabr upon these is something quite easy, because aservant knows that these come from Allh (subhnahu wa tala) and noindividual has had any role or involvement in this calamity coming tohim, so when this is firmly fixed in his mind, he knows that he has toshow patience, either he is forced to show patience, as Ibn Taymiyyahsays, ittirran, or he chooses to show patience, ikhtiyran; becausewhen calamities come to us then there is one category of people who arestrong and out of choice, they know in their mind that Im going toshow patience in front of this calamity, so th ey know beforehand; and


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another category of people are such that when they experience the harm,the toil, and the hardship and the pain, they are forced to show sabr, notsomething that they chose to begin with, that Im going to show

patience, but they are forced by this calamity now Ive got no escape,except to show patience.

So this is the difference between the two types of people. So either outof compulsion or necessity a person shows patience, or out of choice heshows patience to this type of harm which comes to him. Why? Becausehe knows that it is from Allh (subhnahu wa tala), and thus he has nocomplaint.So then they Shaykh says that if this individual is a person for whom

Allh (subhnhu wa tala) he opens up his mind and his thinking andhis imagination, and he makes him realise that this calamity which hascome to him, then it has so many benefits and so much compassion forhim and so much goodness for him, then he will move and transfer fromthis station of being patient, to a station of being grateful, so he nowmoves from sabr and he goes into shukr; this is another level above and

beyond just merely having sabr upon a calamity; because now he hasrealised with the thinking that Allh has opened up for him, he sees, andinshAllah when we read through the twenty points of Ibn Taymyyah,you will see how a servants mind changes into thinking into a differentway, so he sees that in fact everything is a nimah from Allh. So he says here at this point, that when Allh allows a servan t to thinkand reflect and he makes him see the benefits, then he moves from justsabr to a higher level which is now actually being grateful to Allh, he isnow praising and thankful to Allh that this calamity came to himdespite all of the pain and hardship and toil, and so on and so forth.

So then he says, it is at this stage that a believer, he makes this particularsupplication, which is reported from the Messenger that he says,So it is here that the believer makes this du,

O my Lord aid me and support me in remembering you, and in being grateful to you and in making good worship of you (Abu Dwd 2/86)


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]

So in other words, he is asking Allh to bring to him, to aid him withthat which he will become a better worshipper, be more grateful toAllh, to remember Allh, and what is this for a person who is shakr,except calamities that he sees as being a nimah from Allh (subhnahuwa tala).

So then he says that we find that every person he is either strong in thisor weak in this and so the people vary in their levels as to how they treatthe particular issue, and then he gives a line of poetry in which the poetsaid, that a person, he has someone beloved to him and,

Even though some harm has come to me from you, you are beloved tome and have harmed me, and hurt me, but at least I am happy to knowthat at least you are thinking of me.

So what that means, in terms of what Ibn Taymyyah is saying, aservant, when he knows t hat harm has come to him from Allh(subhnahu wa tala), and even though this is harmful to him and

painful to him, and has caused grief to him, he is happy and pleased thatAllh knows of him and that Allh is intending something for him andAllh is co ncerned with his servant, even though he brought somethingthat is a calamity to him. Because the calamity is actually a nimah forhim, so therefore he is pleased and happy that this is the concern thatAllh is showing to him. Just like as we said, in th e line of poetry, a

person, he has someone whom he loves, and although the one whom heloves has harmed him, nevertheless, he is still pleased and happy anddelighted at the fact that he was actually in the mind of that person whowas thinking of him.

So this was the third type of sabr; and there is the fourth type of sabr,and this type of sabr is the one in which harm comes to him from the

people. This is now not purely from the calamities which are outside ofthe hands of the people like illness and disease and death and whateverelse, but rather this is now harm that comes from the people, and this can


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be in terms of his wealth, it can be in terms of his honour, in can be interms of his self, his person, his body, and this type of patience is themost difficult to have, the most burdensome, and the reason is because,now he can see that the harm has come to him from a person, from anindividual, it is now no longer purely from Allh (subhnahu wa tala),although it is from Allh, but it in the first example there isnt anyonewhom he can blame, there isnt any person who wilfully chose to harmhim, so therefore he cant direct his frustration or anger or vengeance orretribution towards anything, because he knows it is from Allh(subhnahu wa tala).

However in this example, when the harm comes to him from the people,

then this is the most difficult affair to have patience upon, and the reasonis because he knows and sees and perceives the one from whom harmcame to him and the soul is such, that the soul dislikes to be dominated;

people do not like to be harmed and controlled, and to be dominated byothers and to have their wealth, their person, their honour and their

bodies to be harmed, abused and reviled.

Thus, this is something that the soul is upon and so therefore his soulinclines him towards revenge and vengeance, and so this is why we seethat there are only a certain category of people who actually are able toshow patience in this and they are the anbiyh and the siddqn. Theseare the pe ople we see in the Qurn, they are mentioned and praised andthis is from their characteristics, that they are the ones who are able toshow patience in respect to this type of calamity, and then we seeexamples of this from the Prophet (sallAllhu alayh wa sallam), whoused to say, as is reported in al Bukhr and Muslim,

May Allh have mercy upon Ms (alayhi al -salm), for indeed he washarmed much more than this, and he showed patience,

Meaning much more than what the Messenger Muhammad (sallAllhualayh wa sallam) was harmed with, because Ms received harm from


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ban Isrl and from Firaun, and so on and so forth, so he said mayAllh have mercy upon him, for he was harmed with much more th anthis, and he showed patience.

The Messenger also informed us in other ahdth, of Prophets who usedto come in the past and they were beaten by their people and thisProphet would say, O Allh forgive my people because they do notknow. And we see that the likes of this was also reported about the Messenger(sallAllhu alayhi wa sallam) that he himself said the likes of thisremark when he was put through a tribulation; and so we see, if we lookin these examples, that there are three things that we see in the Prophets

when they receive this harm from the people; the first one is that they pardon and overlook the harm that has come to them from those people,the second thing is that they make istighfr, that they ask Allh toforgive those people and the third thing is that they make an excuse forthem in that they are ignorant and they excuse them. This is the qualityof the Prophets (alayhim al -salm).

And then Ibn Taymyyah says that this type of sabr has certain rewardsand benefits, there are certain consequences of this type of sabr, and hementions eight of them.

- First of all al- nasr, first of all is the support and aid from Allh(subnahu wa tala);

- the second of them is al- hud, guidance, a person receives moreguidance;

- the third of them is al- surr, happiness and pleasure;

- the fourth of them is al-amn, safety and security;

- the fifth of them is al- qwwah f dhtillh, meaning strength in pursuitof the pleasure of Allh (subhnahu wa tala);


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when that is the case we see that likewise from the examples of theScholars themselves; look at Ibn Taymyyah himself, (rahmahullhutala) how much harm he receive d from the people of his time, from theAshars and from the Jahmyyah and from the Mutazillah and fromthe Sfs and from other than them and from those whom he refuted,and the plotting that they plotted against him; they had him thrown into

prison, and they tried to have him killed and so on and so forth, and soIbn Taymiyyah (rahmahullh) when he is giving this advice to us, he isgiving it from experience from insight, basrah; and so this really is alesson to us as people from the Sunnah who face tribulations more thanany other people, because Ahl al-Sunnah are the ones who are upon thehaqq, who are upon the Truth, and they follow the Prophets and the

Companions and they hold onto the rope of Allh and this invitesopposition and enmity, and plotting and so on and so forth; and so this iswhat explains the great benefit in the small treatise of Shaykh al- IslmIbn Taymyyah and inshAllh I will give you one example or acontemporary situation as well, so we can put everything into context.

If you remember in 1990, when the Gulf war happened, when Saddm,who was a Bathist Communist, invaded Kuwait and then shortly afterthis time there were a group of people who came out in the field ofdawah and their aim was to use this event or this calam ity to try and to

bring down the Scholars, to attack the scholars, to attack Shaykh bin Bz(rahmahullh), to attack Shaykh ibn Uthaymn (rahmahullh) and toattack Shaykh al- Albni (rahmahullh), and the Scholars; and so theycame out, and they began to bring certain slanders and belittlement andmockery that these Scholars are clueless, they do not know what theyare talking about; all they do is speak about womens menses, and thefiqh rulings of purity and so on and so forth, and they are not really

people who understand what is going on, look at this war that is taking place, look at the Americans who have come into the land.. And so they began to belittle them, and their aim was to attack the dawah of theSunnah and to belittle the dawah ofTawhd and the Sunnah, and to

bring the dawah of the Khawrij; the dawah of Syed Qutb, and the fikrof Syed Qutb, and the very first people who recognised and saw what


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these people were up to right at the very beginning were the mashyikhof Madnah, may Allh reward them.

At the head of them, Shaykh Rab and Shaykh Muhammad bin Hdand Shaykh Slih al -Suhaym and Shaykh Ubayd and other than them;and these Scholars from the very beginning, they began to advise themand correct them and mention their errors, and as soon as thesemashyikh performed this obligation, then this is when these people ranto Shaykh ibn Bz, they began to make all of these complaints; yShaykh there are people out there who are causing splits, they aremaking slanders they are attacking the dut, they are attacking thescholars, they are saying this, and doing this, they are people of fitnah,

they are people of sedition, and so from that point after the gulf warfor many, many, many long years, these people began to bring harm andthey began to attack these mashyikh of Madnah; at the head of themShaykh Rab; and so as you read through these points that Shaykh al -Islm ibn Taymyyah is mentioning, you will understand and appreciatewhat those mashyikh had to go through, an d then you will also realisethat the wisdom of Allh and the promise of Allh is true and everythingyouve heard so far from ibn Taymyyah, you will realise that it is theabsolute truth because at the end of it all, after ten years; obviously thereis much more to mention in between, but we can leave that out becauseit is unnecessary detail; but at the end of the ten years, did you ever seeShaykh Rab attack or revile any of these people in their person orattack or harm their wealth, or attack them in their body or attack theirhonour? No, you didnt see that, you saw them explain the truth andclarify the truth and call to Allh.

Did you see any of these mashyikh attack these innovators in their person, in their family, in their honour? No they did nt, but what we seeat the end of it all, what happened? You see that these very same people,Allh humiliated these people, Allh destroyed these people; these

people came out making takfr of the rulers and implying takfr of someof the Scholars like S haykh Rab; at the end of the ten years, Allhhumiliated them; that the very people who followed them rejected them


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and then began to make takfr of them!

So now these people, Safar and Salmn, they are considered kuffr,why? Because they sold out and they were treacherous to the dawah oftakfr and khrijyyah, and so there are found amongst their followersthose who declare them to kuffr, saying that Salmn al -Owdah is akfir, and Safar al Hiwli is a kfir; and look at these people, whathappened at the end of them, we see some of them sitting with Sfsand Shas, like we see Salmn al - Owdah; this is a humiliation uponthese people and the people have abandoned them, these followers whoused to be with them; and so the point being here, that we need to givesome examples so that you can put into context these twenty points that

you are going to hear from Shaykh al- Islm ibn Taymyyah, and this is amatter that never ends for Ahl al-Sunnah, why, because we know thatAllhs Messenger said, There will never be cease to be a group from my Ummah manifestlyupon the truth, and they will not be harmed by those who forsake themnor those who oppose them. Muslim (3/1523 )

So there are two things, either opposition or desertion, and so this willcontinue up until the establishment of the Hour, which proves that Ahlal-Sunnah will always face this type of calamity and hardship whichcomes from the people; which is the fourth type of sabr which ibnTaymyyah is speaking of, which only the Prophets and the Siddqn areable to show, and so these are examples which we must give so that youcan put into context what is happening around you, and why these thingsare happening around us and why they are occurring, and then when a

person looks at it in this way, then he will have a completely different perception of the affairs, and to show sabr will become very easy uponhim, and inshAllh this will made clear by these twenty points that ibnTaymyyah is now going to present to us.

So he says, that the servant will be aided upon this sabr, (meaning thisfourth type of sabr) by many things, and then he mentions from them the


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first of them; and notice as well that in about ten of these points, ibnTaymyyah says an yash -hada or he says an yalama that a p ersoneither he witnesses, he sees, he observes, or he knows; which means thatwhat ibn Taymyyah is intending is that a person change the way helooks at things in his mind; such that when he looks at things in adifferent way then it will allow him to become patient more easily, so alot of it is to change the way you look at Allhs qad and qadr.

So the first one he says, that he witnesses that Allh (subhnahu watala) is the Creator of the actions of the servants; this is from our

belief. He created all of their movements, He created all of their rest,when they move or when they are at rest, He created all of that, He

creates all of their irdt, every wish or will, that arises in a person to dosomething, Allh is the Creator of that wish, so if a person wishes youharm, for example, that the wish arises in a person to harm you, Allhcreated that wish in that person; Allh is the Creator of that irda.

So he says, whatever Allh wishes or wills, it will happen, and whateverhe does not will and does not wish will not happen. So therefore nothingmoves, there is no movement in this world, in this universe, the higherlevel of the universe or the lower level of the universe, meaning in theheavens or in the earth, and nor any atom, except that it moves byAllhs will and by Allhs wish.

And so therefore, every single servant, all of the servants are basicallyan instrument, they are a tool; so he says that the servants are a tool andan instrument, so dont look at the servants look at the one w ho has usedthem against you; meaning Allh (subhnahu wa tala).

So dont look at their action, but rather look at the action of Allh(subhnahu wa tala), and when you do this, then all of the ghamm andthe hamm, all of the anxiety and the concern and the stress will beremoved from you. So the point here that Shaykh al- Islm ibnTaymyyah is mentioning, is that we tend to have tunnel vision, andwhen calamities come to us from the people, we dont think beyond the


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Whatever calamity has come to you, it is what your own hands haveearned, and he pardons many. (Ash -Shura: 30)

So when a person starts thinking about these things which come to himfrom the people, maybe his body has been harmed, maybe his wealth has

been harmed, his honour has been attacked, hes been reviled, namecalled and so and so forth, whatever it is, then the first thing that heshould look at are his own sins. It is like the first step in a series of steps,the first thing that he looks at is, this is from my own sins, this is from

my sins; and when he sees all of this is because of his sins, he will then become occupied with istighfr and with taubah, because that is the firstthing that a person should turn to when a calamity comes to him. As wewill see, the peoples priorities are all messed up, they do not followthese priorities that ibn Taymyyah is mentioning, they are all messed upand the haw comes in and so and so forth , and so a persons action isnow confused.

So what ibn Taymyyah is doing is, he is giving you a methodology,how do you recognise something for what it actually is, then what arethe steps you take.So the first thing is that you know that Allh created the actions of everyservant, then when a calamity comes to you the first thing that you thinkis, it is from my sins, so when he makes this acknowledgement that thisis from his sins, then it leads him to make istighfr and taubah as thefirst step; and so he makes taubah and istighfr from all o f the sins,

because there are many sins, and it is likely that because of these sinsthese calamities come to him from Allh (subhnahu wa tala) throughthe people, and when he does this it will take him away from justreviling that person, cursing that person, abusing that person and tryingto blame that person. This shows the difference between a person whounderstands al- qad wa al -qadr, and between a person who is not likethat. The person who understands al- qad wa al -qadr, this is how he


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And at the end He says,

And Allh does not love those who are the dhlimn, theoppressors (Surah al -Shra: 40)

And those are the ones who take more than their right that is due tothem.

So when a person he understands that these are the three types of people

then he will realise in order to get the reward which Allh has mentionedin this verse, he has to show sabr, he has to be patient, he has to evensometimes leave the right which is due to him if he is one who wantsthat reward.So look at all these things which Allh has brought to the indi vidual bymeans of a single calamity or harm through another person, all thesethings have been opened out for him, these are favours and bountiesfrom Allh. And then he mentions a statement or a hadth that it will bementioned on the Day of Judgement, a caller will call,Every person upon whom reward has become obligatory for Allh to give to him, let him stand for that reward ,

And so no one will stand for that reward except for the one who forgaveand had patience and overlooked the harm that came to him, only these

people will then stand, because only these people actually deserve it andare appointed for it; so this is the third benefit.

The fourth point that he mentions is that a person when he pardons andoverlooks and he hussar, then his heart inherits this purity, his heart is

pure, it is salm, and so all of the other negative qualities like al ghish,which is a type of deception, and a type of hatred and seeking revengeand intending evil upon someone else and all of these kinds of diseases


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of the heart, he saves his heart from being afflicted by these diseases,meaning when he shows patience, and when he overlooks and when heexpects his reward from Allh; then he keeps his heart pure, and then hetastes the sweetness of the deliciousness o f mn and of patience and soon an so forth, and he will also, as a result of this, he will receivemultiple times reward than if he pursued revenge and vengeance fromthat individual or spent his effort and time in trying to correct thatwrong; rather in this he has more reward from Allh (subhnahu watala) and so what happens here is that he becomes someone who is

beloved to Allh as Allh says,

Allh loves those who do goodness (Surah al -Imrn: 134)

And so he be comes one of those who is loved by Allh, so in otherwords meaning, when he shows sabr, and leaves off all of those diseasesof the heart, like seeking revenge and retribution and all those thingswhich come into his heart when a calamity comes to him fromsomething else, when he is harmed and he leaves that for the sake ofAllh, and he makes ihsn, he is benevolent and he pardons and forgivesand overlooks it, this in turn wins him the love of Allh (subhnahu watala), because Allh says, Allh loves the muhsineen and because hehas done ihsn, then this harm which has come to him from someoneelse has earned him the love of Allh (subhnahu wa tala).

And this is the fourth point that Shaykh al- Islm ibn Taymyyahmentions and he gives an example, he says this is like someone comes toyou, he steals a dinr from you, he takes one dinr from you and so youleave it, you do not pursue it and as a result, thousands of dinrs come

back to you in return. So this is an example, someone comes and he hasharmed you hes abused you hes reviled you hes attacked your namehes attacked your honour, he has spread it on the internet or whatever.Leave him, dont pursue him, ignore him, make your ihtisb with Allh(subhnahu wa tala) and when you do that and you protect your heartfrom all of those diseases and those negative feelings and emotions and


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so on and so forth, you have kept your heart clean and pure, and youvedone ihsn, what have you earned in return? You have earned themahabbah of Allh (subhnahu wa tala). So a dinr was taken fromyou and thousands came to you in return, and this is how ibn Taymyyahhas given that example.

The fifth point he says, is that you should know that never does a personseek revenge for himself, for his own personal self, meaning for his ownsake except that he will be made to inherit dhull, meaning humility,and disgrace; such that if you pursue a matter in which you are trying toseek revenge for your own soul, for your own self, for your own sake,that will l ead you to inherit dhull from Allh (subhnahu wa tala),

meaning humility and disgrace, and he says, however, if he overlooksand pardons the particular issue at hand then Allh will give him izzah,Allh will give him even more izzah, Allh will make him even morenoble and strong, and this is in fact stated in a hadth of the Messengerof Allh (sallaAllhu alayh wa sallam), where he said in a hadth,

Never did Allh increase a servant who showed pardoning andoverlooking things except in izz honour and might and strength andnobility ,

So when hardship comes to an individual from other people from theopposers from the innovators from the people of desires, even fromsometimes from Ahl al-Sunnah who may encroach upon your right,upon your person and upon your wealth; he shows pardon, he forgivesand he overlooks, then we find Allh makes him even more noble andgives him even more strength.

However, if he were to seek revenge and seek his own right, and pursuethis matter for his own sake, th en he has lost that izzah which Allhwould otherwise have given to him.And then he says, in reality when we see a person tries to seek revengeor correct a wrong and he pursues it, then it might look outwardly as if


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he has acquired some honour, but inwardly he has acquired dhull, in the btin he has acquired dhull, whereas if he left the matter completelyfrom the beginning and he showed patience and he expected his rewardfrom Allh, he overlooked it and left it, then this is al -izzah, nobilitywould be both on the inside and on the outside. So this is the fifth pointthat a person should realise, so all of these points that you realise when asingle calamity comes to you from somebody else, these are all waysand opportunities by which Allh has brought a nimah to you in front ofyou and are all different ways by which you can achieve the mahabbahof Allh and izzah with Allh (subhnahu wa tala), and reward fromAllh and so on and so forth.

Then he says point number six, and he says this is from the greatest benefits that a person witnesses that the reward for anything is alwayswith its like, meaning you do good, good will come to you, if you doevil, evil will come to you. So this is from the greatest of the principleswhich you should look at; and then he explains what he means, so payattention to see what he is actually meaning here, he says, what it meansis that you as a servant are dhlim ul li nafsi, you are wronging yourown soul, you are a sinner, we are all sinners, we wrong ourselves, weare disobedient to Allh and in this is an opportunity for you, because ifyou pardon other people who wrong you, if you have sabr you overlookand pardon them then Allh likewise in turn upon you, you who arewronging yourself and disobeying Allh, then Allh will in turn will

pardon and forgive you.

So he says, so therefore a servant when harms come to him from others,they attack his honour they attack his wealth they attack his body, andwhatever else whether it is a dunya thing or a dn thing, an d heoverlooks them and shows nobility and honour and overlooks it and heshows patience, then in turn the reward for an act is its like, and Allh inturn will give you the same; He will forgive you and pardon you and soon and so forth; and so he says, but as for when a person does notforgive and then he pursues, he wants revenge and vengeance, he wantsto seek to redress the matter for himself, then you have just lost that


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pardon and forgiveness from Allh (subhnahu wa tala), you have justsacrificed it, because you wanted to pursue your own desires and angerand so on and so forth. So this is the sixth point that he mentions.

The seventh point that he mentions is that a person who becomes preoccupied in trying to redress the wrongs done against him to seekrevenge to correct things, so maybe he has been slandered, his name has

been called, he has been reviled he has been abused, his honour has beenattacked, his family has been spoken of and so on and so forth like these

people do nowadays, on the internet and elsewhere; you speak the truth,you defend the Scholars, and the next thing you know, the whole dunyaknows that you are this and you are that, so if you were to now chase

these people and start correcting everything and defending your honourand so on and so forth, and pursue things for your own self then whatyou have done is entered into a matter which is going to waste evenmore of your time and so even more harm has come to you than theinitial harm that came to you in the first place. So you are just wastingyour time, your heart is becoming scattered, you are just filled withanxiety and stress and you are losing so many benefits which you couldhave been preoccupied in as a result of pursuing this matter for your ownself.

So ibn Taymyya h is saying that a person, his heart should simply show patience and to overlook things and to ignore things and to just continueupon his path, otherwise more harm will come to him.The eighth benefit that he mentions here is that, and he gives a beautifulexample here, he says, look at the Messenger of Allh (sallAllhualayhi wa sallam), do you see that he ever, ever, ever sought revengefor his own self? He says, never, he never sought revenge for his ownself, and this is alongside our knowledge that he is the best of creation,he is the most noble of creation and he never sought revenge for himself,even though he was harmed in the path of Allh (subhnahu wa tala),meaning that this was purely a dn thing, this was to do with religion, allthe harm that came to him was for the religion, and all the rights of thereligion were the ones that were violated when the Messenger of Allh


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So here now he is saying that if a servant is harmed in something whichhe has done purely and sincerely for the sake of Allh, now this is dn;he has done a righteous deed, or he is calling to Allh and to the Sunnah,he is calling to the way of the Salaf; this is for the sake of Allh andwithin that he is now harmed, in this situation it is wjib upon him toshow sabr and have patience, meaning it is not permissible for him at allto try to seek revenge for himself; the reason is because he is harmed inthe path of Allh, the reward comes from Allh, and nobody else, andthis is why he gives the example of those who are mujhidn fsablillh, those who struggle and strive to fight in the path of Allh, thatthere is no one from the people who is a guarantor for them; their lives

and their wealth, there is no guarantee for them from anybody else,rather it is guaranteed by Allh; so when they die, it is Allh thatguarantees it for them, so likewise here in a situation where a person is

proceeding upon the path of Allah, in the dn of Allh, then it is wjibupon him to have sabr and not to seek revenge or retribution for his ownself, because this then means that he has removed from himself theguarantee from Allh (subhnahu wa tala) and he has entrustedhimself to the people.

So this is the ninth point that he mentions, and then in fact he continuesto explain it quite well, there is a good example he gives, he says that ifyou are a person who has some goods, and you want to sell these goods,

but you are unable to handle travelling to a hot climate to sell them, andyou are unable to handle being in a cold climate to sell them, and youcannot have patience in trying to avoid all of the thieves upon the path,the highway robbers that might steal your goods, whilst you aretravelling to sell your merchandise, then you do not deserve these goodsin the first place.

You should not even have these goods in your hands and your pockets;do not sell them, it is not for you. So what he is explaining here is whenthese goods came to you from Allh; and remember at the beginning wesaid that every qad and qadar that comes to you collectively is matjir,


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it is merchandise that has come to you from Allh; so if you cannothandle this merchandise, you cannot have sabr and you cannot have the

patience, you should not even have the merchandise in your hand.

So this is how he is connecting this particular issue to the issue thatcame earlier on, so meaning you have to develop patience in yourself,you have to build patience in yourself, and without this you will neverever reach your path, because the trader, his aim is to make profit, if youcannot have patience within a hot climate, or a cold climate, you cannothandle travelling and the burdensome aspects of travelling, and youcannot handle the thieves and whatever else may come in your way; youcannot have patience upon that, then there is no point in you being upon

this path, there is no point in you trading, because you will not reachyour goal.

So in a similar way a person who wants to reach Allh, then sabr issomething he must have in all of these different things.And so he moves on to the tenth point and he says, that a person shouldalso observe themaiyah of Allh (subhnahu wa tala), that he knowsthat Allh is with him; when he has patience, that he knows that Allh iswith him, and this is by virtue of the saying of Allh in the Qurn,

Be patient, indeed Allh is with the patient. (Surah al -Anfl: 46) So now he knows that when he shows sabr in all of these steps we havementioned, he knows that the maiyah of Allh, Allh is with him in hissabr, and he knows that if Allh is with him, all of these harms will bemove d and repelled by Allh (subhnahu wa tala), which no one elsefrom the creation is able to repel from him and remove from him; andlikewise he knows that Allhs love will come upon him because Allhsaid,

Allh loves those who are patient (Surah al -Imrn: 146)


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So we have the mahabbah, and we have the maiyah of Allh(subhnahu wa tala) on account of a person showing this sabr.

The eleventh point is that sabr is one half of mn; so if he were to see krevenge for himself, he has lost and sacrificed a part of mn which heotherwise could have had, and increased upon. So in other words whenyou pursue your own vengeance and retribution and try to take yourright for your own soul, meaning that you do not have patience, then youhave just sacrificed a part of mn, you have just let it go, whichotherwise would have increased your level of mn.

The twelfth point he mentions, is that one should witness that the patience he is showing is something by which he controls his soul, andhe dominates his soul and he enslaves his own soul, meaning that he hasnow captured his own soul, and he has locked it and controlled it fromevery single angle, and he says that when a soul is dominated, conqueredand subdued it is in control and tied.

He says, the soul in turn cannot try to enslave him, and then he says thesoul will not be able to lead him to destruction and the soul will obeyhim and listen to him instead of it being the other way round and helistens to the soul, and the soul then leads him to destruction. Then thisis the result of patience. The patience is such that it allows him todominate and control his soul, and so what this will lead to when a

person does this, he says, that the authority, the sult n returns back to theheart; the heart now becomes the sultn, because this is how it should be,is that not right? You remember the hadth, The piece of flesh in the body if it is sound then all of the otherlimbs will be sound. (Bukhr)

The heart is the King and the limbs are the soldiers, so when he subduesthe soul and conquers the soul, the authority remains with the heart, theheart remains King; but when he does not, the heart no longer remainsKing, so it is the soul that overtakes and dominates.


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So you understand what ibn Taymyyah is saying here, that byimplementing this patience in all of these ways that we have mentioned,then the heart remains the King, and the limbs which are the soldierswill always follow whatever the heart is upon, and then he says, sotherefore his soldiers, meaning his limbs, will become firmlyestablished, they will be strong and they will aid him against himself,against his soul and against the Shaytn.

The thirteenth benefit here is that when a person has patience, then hisaid from Allh is guaranteed, as we said before be patient, verily Allhis with the patient, and so he says that when you try to seek revenge foryour own self then you have just sacrificed that aid from Allh, that aid

now has gone, because you did not show that patience which would have brought the aid of Allh.

The fourteenth point he mentions is that when he has patience upon theharm of somebody else, then that patience itself is something that willforce that other person to return back from his oppression, because whatwill happen is that when a person shows patience and the people see him

being patient, then those people will in turn start speaking about thatindividual, because they can see that you have conducted yourself withhonour and with nobility, and you have shown all of the noblecharacteristics, and over time the people will realise that you are the onewho is upon the truth and you are the one who is following the guidance,and you are the one whose character and honour and behaviour is likethat which the Messenger has commanded, and as for the dhlim, theone who is reviling you and speaking ill of you and being unjust to youand taking your honour, then the people will recognise from the fitrahthat this person is upon falsehood.

So when you show patience upon all the harm, then that person himselfwill be forced by the circumstances to either leave his dhulm or to behated by the people, and so either this person will become embarrassedand humbled and become ashamed for what he did, and he will beremorseful for what he did, and then he will become a friend to you,


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meetings and confrontations and so on, and this is the greater of the twoharms.

The sixteenth benefit he mentions is that a person might change from being the oppressed to being the one who is the oppressor. So he saysthat a person who does not have sabr, then he tries to pursue theseaffairs, he tries to seek revenge for his own soul for his own self, and inthe process he might go beyond the limits and beyond the bounds, andhe might fall into something which is harm, and as a result he has nowmoved from being the one who is madhlm to the one who is now adhlim, the one who is initially oppressed, now he has become the

dhlim himself. So if he is not careful a nd he does not have sabr and hedoes not overlook things, then he is in danger of becoming the dhlimafter being the madhlm. So this is a danger he needs to be aware of.

The seventeenth benefit the Shaykh mentions here is that this harm thathas come to him from other people, then it only has two reasons or twothings behind it; either it is an expiation of a sin, or it is a raising of yourrank. So if you feel that you are harmed and oppressed and reviled and

abused by other people either in a dunya mat ter or in a dni matter thenthere are only two things; either it is Allh expiating your sin for you, soit is a nimah or it is Allh raising your rank if it is not in relation to asin; so this is also a nimah, so again it is a matter of perception thi s ishow we look at calamities that come to us from the opposers and otherthan them.

The eighteenth benefit is that he says that his sabr and his forbearanceand his overlooking things is from the greatest of soldiers, the greatest ofthe armies that he has in his possession, against his opponent, against hisenemy and against his disputant, that is the greatest army that he hasagainst his opponent, why, because he says when a person has sabr andhe overlooks these affairs, his sabr and his patience and his overlooking


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person the feeling that I am lesser than that person, he is higher than meand Im down here, he is up there and I am down here, even though hemight not like it, but he will be forced in his soul to acknowledge, eventhough he might not like it, even though he might continue to opposeyou, but his soul will be forced to acknowledge that he is up there and Iam down here, just by you behaving in the way you are behaving; beinghonourable, being noble, having sabr, not resorting to what he isresorting to.

It is a law and rule that he will be made to feel that he is lowly and thatyou are the one who is honourable and superior, this is just how it is; andhe says, and so therefore this person will have an inferiority complex, he

will never cease to consider himself to be lower than you and below youand so sufficient is this for a person who has sabr as a sharf, and asnobility for him.

And finally, point number twenty, he says, that when he has sabr and heoverlooks this matter, and he pardons and so on and so forth, this is nowhasanah, this is now one good deed for him, but this hasanah, this gooddeed itself will now give birth to another good deed, and that deed willthen give birth to another good deed, and so on and so forth, whichmeans that his good deeds will never cease to end. His good deeds willalways continue to grow and grow, and this is like there are certain typesof plants where if you plant one seed, a bit like mint for example, you

plant it in one place the next thing you know, it is growing everywhere,and you cannot control it.

There are some plants which are like that; so a good deed is like a seedand it produces another good deed, and then it just continues on and onand so this is from the greatest favours upon a servant, that his gooddeeds never cease , they continue to grow and generate and so on and soforth; and so this is how it is that if he did not have that patience and didnot have sabr and did not have that honourable way of dealing withthings, and he sought revenge for himself and wanted to defend hishonour and so on and so forth, then he has cut off that seed from the


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very beginning; meaning that he has just sacrificed all of that goodnessthat would have otherwise come to him, because he did not have sabrand did not have patience.So that is the end of th e twenty points, but remember, this rislah iscalled Qidah f al -sabr wa a- shukr; so al -shukr is still left, so all ibnTaymyyah says at the end is just one sentence, Gratitude is that you work deeds in obedience to Allh, (subhnahuwa tala). So obviously this is where the rislah ends and this would require anelaboration upon shukr itself, but that is where Shaykh al- Islm ibnTaymyyah has ended so inshAllh we will end the dars here, butinshAllh I hope you understand the intent behind the rislah; because

we, as Ahl al-Sunnah, no doubt are going to face harm and oppositionand tribulations and trials, not just in our dunya affairs but our dn affairsas well, from all of the mukhlafn, from the innovators; and how manyand in abundance they are, and if we do not understand and see al- qadwa al-qadr and patience to what comes to us from al- qad wa al -qadr, inthe way that ibn Taymyyah has explained, and we do not see it fromthat angle; then we will not really be able to proceed with basrah uponsabr, and we will not really be able to maintain nobility, honour andstrength.

So this is why I said that this rislah is really beautiful; a person shouldread it once a week if he can, everyday if he can, because it containsmighty and amazing benefits, and this is more so for Ahl al-Sunnah; the

people who follow the way of the Salaf because they are always beingsubject to harm and abuse and revilement by those who abandon thetruth or those who are upon other than the truth to begin with, in the first

place.

So with that I hope inshAllhu tala this has been of some benefit tomyself and yourself, and with that we conclude the lecture.

Subhnaka Allhumma wa bihamdika wa ash -hadu an- l ilha ill antawa astaghfiruka wa atb ilayk.


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Documents

Principle Regarding Patience -Ibne Taymiyyah