Patience and Gratitude

Opening

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the Master of the Prophets and Messengers, our Master, our Master, and our Beloved, Muhammad, and upon his family and all his progeny.

Main Body

Today's class is going to be picking up from where we left off last time when we were considering the fundamental issue of Tawbah, that is to say the return to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the penitent fire in the heart that purifies us and restores us to the Ahsani Taqweem, the best of all forms, which is the Fitrah, the basic human modality in which Allah has created us and which he wants us to maintain.

The next book that follows on from that in the very subtle sequencing of topics in Imam al-Ghazali's Ihya' Ulum al-Din is the Kitab al-Sabri wa al-Shukr, the Book of Patience and Gratitude. And the Imam puts these two things together and we'll see very soon exactly why that should be.

So, he begins with these words:

Faith has two halves. One half is (صبر - patience), and the other half is (شكر - thankfulness), as has come down in tradition and in the hadith.

So, he's immediately startling us with the reality of the deep importance of this, which is that it's really the same thing as (إيمان - iman). (صبر - sabr) and (شكر - shukr) if you have them, you put them together, really that's 100% of what (إيمان - iman) constitutes. Similarly, (إيمان - iman), that is to say the fixed, secure awareness of the reality of Allah in your heart, necessarily engenders these qualities.

Because you have the (صبر - sabr) which enables you to be patient in adversity and also to make the right choices when ethical difficulties come your way. But you also have this consciousness that everything in the world actually has a meaning, and that that meaning is what gives a kind of extra dimension to the human experience. That no longer are we looking at the world as though it was two dimensions projected on a screen, but this extra dimension of meaning, which is the meaning of faith, is something that actually enables us to see things in their full magnificence and also in perspective.

So this is the way he wants to lead us into this topic. He's talking about faith as being the same thing as, really as definable by (صبر - sabr) and (شكر - shukr). And then he says something that's perhaps even more extraordinary:

And they are also two of the qualities of Allah, two of the adjectives that we use to describe Him, and two of His most beautiful names.

Since He has called Himself patient and thankful.

So ignorance of the true nature of what (صبر - sabr) and (شكر - shukr) constitute is ignorance of both sides of faith itself.

So He's really grabbing us by the lapels and shaking us and insisting on the real importance of this topic. And it's important to bear in mind the subtle relationship that is being invoked here between the way in which human beings can adorn themselves with beautiful qualities and the way in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is characterized by certain perfect qualities.

How do we know what is perfection and what is imperfection? What is perfect is ultimately not what a consensus of human beings in any particular decade regard as perfect. What is perfect is that which has its origin and its true form in the nature of the divine, in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So we don't say that mercy is good because Parliament has decided that mercy is good or because a filmmaker has told us that mercy is good or because a poet or some rhetorician has told us that mercy is good.

Mercy is good because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has said:

He has prescribed mercy upon Himself.

And because He has called Himself الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - the Compassionate, the Merciful.

So there is a relationship between the virtues that exist on earth, particularly these منجيات these saving virtues that are the subject of this section of Imam Ghazali's Ihya' and of which the sabr and shukr form such powerful foundations. There is a relationship between these virtues which human beings can acquire and make themselves beautiful with and some of the qualities of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Now we obviously are finite beings. We come and we go in a few years. We've rotted away and nobody remembers us and there is a new generation that has the same illusions and the same dreams and the same hopes and the same fears and that's the nature of the human condition.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is الْخَلاقُ الْبَاقِي - He is the one who creates. He is the one who goes on. He is the one who does not change. He is the one who knows everything that has happened, that is happening, that will happen.

So there is no real analogy, no actual PS that you can engage in between the nature of the Divine in His perfection and His omnipotence and His omniscience and His everything and our nature as eminently fallible and ignorant human beings. But nonetheless there is an extraordinary way in which names can be shared and that is because we as human beings try to adorn ourselves with beautiful qualities and there is no source of beauty or goodness or appropriateness except in the Divine.

And this is the meaning of the prophetic word which is an amazing hadith and is a commandment: تَخَلَّقُوا بأخلاق الله - Adorn yourself with the qualities of Allah. (Hadith)

Allah is merciful, you should be merciful. Allah is patient, you should be patient. Allah is just, you should be just and so on. And Imam Al-Ghazali actually has another book, Al-Maqsad Al-Asna, The Highest Aim, in which he takes us to each one of the 99 names that have been attributed to Allah in the hadith and explains how our relationship to that particular Divine perfection ought to be.

And the perfect human being, the one who has truly become what a human being is asked to become, is somebody who has the due proportion of all of these things. That's what it is to be a perfect human being, it's eminently ethical.

So in short, the Imam has chosen to start this book with a reminder that when we try and acquire these qualities of being patient, of being grateful, we are acquiring qualities that are not just conventions of this world but that link us to something that is infinite and something that is transcendent.

Chapter on Sabr (Patience)

So Imam Al-Ghazali has chosen to put these two things together, sabr and shukr. And he's also said that this is fundamental to what it means to be a believer. And we find in the Qur'an, really more than any other world scripture, an emphasis on these principles. Sabr, sabr, sabr, wherever you open it, if you come to the text for the first time, you open it, there's a lot about sabr in the Qur'an.

And, of course, you can see the qualities of sabr in the Holy Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in the seerah from the earliest days of the persecution in Mecca until the extraordinary consummation of his story at the end of the Medinan period. And the sabr that was shown by his sahaba, radhiallahu anhum, and the sabr really that's shown by everybody who's worth anything, who is engaged in the struggle against the enemies of truth in this world and the enemies of balance in his own self. It's all about sabr.

They shall be given their reward twice because of the sabr that they had. (Quran 39:10)

Allah is with those who show patience. (Quran 2:249)

This ma'iyyah, this withness, this extraordinary quality of proximity to the divine, which means conformity to what he wants us to be. Walking in the place where he wants us to walk. Looking at what he wants us

to look at. Saying what he wants us to say.

Muwafakah. Corresponding, conforming to the ideal that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has established as something for us to strive after. That is what the ma'iyyah actually means. And this sabr is the way to get there. And it works for communities as well.

And we made them imams, guiding by our command when they had sabr.

And that's the way of peoples and of nations. No people gets to become great and powerful and glorious, whether it be for reasons of dunya or reasons of truth, without having the capacity to restrain itself, to work hard, to overcome the immediate temptation to fritter away one's abilities and skills and potential in immediate pleasures and immediate distractions. No one has to postpone one's desires, abolish one's desires even, and then, through this quality of sabr, one is made an imam, a leader in this world.

And, in fact, the whole basis of religious transformation, this process of tawbah that we spoke about last time, is about sabr. Without sabr, that is to say, being patient in the face of temptations and adversity, you can't really engage in this process of overcoming the bad stuff that you do.

(Reported by At-Tirmidhi)

There is, in being patient in the face of things that you dislike, much good.

So if it's difficult to get up in the morning, if it's difficult to avoid certain foods in which there is haram or something shubha, if it's difficult to avoid bad company, if it's difficult to observe one's religious obligations and one's ethical qualities, if it's difficult to visit relatives who perhaps are difficult back to one, if it's difficult to pay attention to the religious education of your children, and so forth, all these things that are difficult, being sabr, controlling yourself, disciplining yourself in that situation فِيهِ خَيْرٌ كَثِيرٌ - there is great good in that.

Each time you succumb to a temptation, each time you say, I'll do that thing just once. I deserve it. I need a break. Then the next time you have the choice between doing that thing that wastes your time or doing something that's going to take you forward and benefit you or benefit somebody else, it's going to be easier for you to choose the lazy thing.

Don't think that I will postpone that good action or that tawbah until such time as it's actually easier because you have no means of being sure that it's going to be easier for you tomorrow and, in fact, the chances are it's going to be harder. The more you postpone that action, the more difficult it's going to be for you. So do it now and have sabr, and, inshallah, you either will end up not being interested in those things at all or they will be given to you in a halal and rewarding way at some later point.

Look at what Imam Ali, karamAllahu wajhahu, says:

Patience with regard to faith is in the same situation as the head with regard to the body. (Hadith)

And what does that mean? Well, the head is where we have our capacity for tamyeez, for discerning things, for knowing what is a positive thing to do, what's a negative thing to do. Without it, we are just senses and experiences. We are essentially, as human beings, just robotic.

Similarly, if you don't have this capacity for self-restraint, if you don't have this capacity to deal in a dignified way with misfortunes and hardship, then, in effect, your humanity has been lost. What is it that defines us as human beings? Not the senses, not the body, not our physical capacities, not even our mental capacities. What defines our humanity, what makes us Bani Adam, is the capacity to regulate everything else so that the mind, the consciousness, is like a king in the kingdom, which is the body. And if the king isn't there, and the king isn't disciplining the body, the body will fall to pieces, just as the kingdom will fall to pieces without a government and without a just king.

Now, here the Imam reminds us of something that is said in the Kitab al-Tawbah, which is a kind of three- fold plan of action. Remember when we were talking about repentance, that he says, first of all, it's knowing that something was wrong. And then it's having that fire in your heart that tells you that you've done something wrong. And then the Amal, the third thing, which is doing something to put it right.

Similarly, with Sabr, there is the knowledge that a certain decision has to be taken and that a certain sacrifice is being asked of one. And then there is the state whereby we actually, which is where we become truly human, say, I will choose X and I will not choose Y, which is what makes us above the cats and the dogs and the pigs and everything else and makes us extraordinary. That's the capacity to choose.

And the inward hal that both promotes that, that comes from faith, that gives us the strength to choose the right thing, and also the consequence, the spiritual benefit that flows from having made the right decision. And then the action itself.

And the Imam compares this to a tree. He says a tree has roots, it has branches, and it has fruit. And the roots are like the knowledge. And the branches are like the states and the actual action or the refusal to act that constitutes the essence of Sabr itself. And the fruits, the spiritual benefits that ensue from that. And the purpose of the tree really is for the fruit.

Nobody plants an apple tree for any reason other than to get the apples, most people. Similarly, nobody plants wheat for any reason other than to get the flour to make grain. Similarly, the purpose of all religious actions and sacrifices is to produce the fruit. And the fruit are always these inward dispositions that benefit ourselves and that benefit society.

Chapter on Medicines for Achieving Sabr

Now, this is something that we learn and that a good teacher can teach us, but it is something that is part

This is what he says صلى الله عليه وسلم : If a man had a whole valley full of gold, he would want another valley of gold. But at the end, it's only dust that will fill his mouth. (Sahih al-Bukhari)

And this is another of the crazy intoxications of modernity, the false promises. Earn more, get more, be more happy. Well, if you earn more, you can get more, but happiness is something that's a very subtle thing that governments can't give you, corporations can't give you, products can't give you. A good relationship amongst people who have absolutely nothing in the world is going to give them more happiness than somebody who has a billion but who always argues with his wife. Because the real things that bring us serenity in our hearts are not really measured with wealth.

The Three Aspects of Gratitude

Now, Imam al-Ghazali is going to talk about this particular interesting paradox and this mistake that all of us make again and again, the more I get, the happier I'll be, this ridiculous intoxication somewhere else. And inshallah, we'll have an opportunity to look at that where he talks about the issue of faqr, of poverty, and zuhud, doing without. And we'll see that his solution is the middle way.

The best of all matters is the middle way. He's not saying, because all of these extra treats won't make you happier but will make you unhappy, therefore you shouldn't have anything at all. No, he will show that the way of Islam is a way of balance, that we take what we need, and that beyond that is just more stress and more anxiety and more complexity.

Muslim life is a comfortable life, but it's a simple life, and it's simplicity that enables us to cultivate what we really need, which is what the hearts crave, which is the dhikr of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Otherwise, everything is anxiety, everything is stress, everything is jaza, or being anxious.

And what does the soul need? It needs dhikr of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It needs to remember its Lord. You can give the soul the new iPod. You can give the soul the new iPhone. You can give the soul the latest laptop. You can give the soul a holiday in the Bahamas. Fine, much of that may be halal, but it won't stop the soul making a noise and being anxious and wanting more and wanting more, because that's not the food that it really craves.

Give it the simplest thing, the thing that doesn't cost anything, the thing for which it was created, which is the remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and then it will be qalb salim, which is what you have to come up to the judgment seat with anyway.

On the last day, when neither money nor wealth will be of any use to us, except he who comes to Allah with a sound heart قَلْب سليم - And the salim means whole. (Quran 26:88-89)

In other words, not that it's been made something other than what it is, but that it's unbroken, it's not wounded. Otherwise we go through life with a voice inside our head saying, I have to do this, I have to get that, my neighbor's got this, my neighbor's got that, and we use our lives just running after things that just make us, the next stage in the race, running after something else. People make money out of us for that.

People may point at us and say, there's somebody who's conforming perfectly, she's wearing the latest clothes, she's conforming. He's doing this, he's conforming. He's doing that, he's conforming. But if you're looking to silence the baby that's screaming in your arms, you won't find that's the way.

What we need instead is this virtue of gratitude. And gratitude means to recognize the meaning of things. That with every ni'mah, there is a mun'im. That behind every blessing in creation, there is one who has provided that blessing.

The imam then goes on to talk about this quality of shukr. Now remember we saw with sabr, he said there's three stages. Knowledge, state, action. And he makes the same point here.

If you really want to understand what it is to have shukr, to be shakir, to be grateful to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, to make this part of your spiritual discipline, it's a three-point program. Knowledge, state, action.

The ilm, the knowledge, is the inner sight that you see through the form of the thing, through the atoms and the neutrons and the protons, to the meaning of the thing, which is that the ni'mah comes from the mun'im. In other words, when you see that something is beautiful, you recognize Allah's beauty in that thing. When you love something, you recognize the love of Allah in something. When you see something as balanced and as appropriate, you see the balance and appropriateness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in that thing.

And mostly we find that in nature. You can also find it in pure human beings. You can find it in human beauty. The shahid, the one whose beauty bears witness to the perfection of the Creator, is something that the poets have regularly sung about. And sometimes in a beautiful place like this, everything has been done by pure hearts, by pure craftsmen, with love for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and his messenger and the silsila of their tariqa in their hearts. And as a result, the place is beautiful and it's a place where hearts can be softened.

So that's the deep view that we need, the iman that enables us to see behind the forms of things into meaning. And then the hal of shukr begins.

Imam al-Ghazali defines this hal as (الْفَرَحُ بِالْمُنْعِمِ مَعَ هَيْئَةِ الْخُصُوعِ وَالتَّوَاضع - It's a good definition. It means to take joy in the source of the blessing while having the attitude of humility and submission.

And that's quite a subtle psychological insight that really to perceive, if you go to a fruit tree and you see the branches heavy with plums or with apples or with peaches and the heart intuits automatically that this is a gift held out by a beautiful creator that wishes human beings to eat and to drink and to be happy. If you have that wonderful sense in your heart, then you will not suddenly jump up and shout Allahu Akbar. You will have a certain humility in your heart. You will think subhanallah, alhamdulillah. And that's the imam's psychological observation.

The state that accompanies the knowledge that these things are blessings from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the state of humility. And that's why often the agriculturalist can be of a high spiritual state or the one who looks after animals can be of a high spiritual state because very often if you work with the direct gifts of Allah through nature frequently, you get a very deep spiritual intuitive wisdom about how Allah's creation works and a certain humility comes from that that's very beautiful.

Then the imam goes on to talk about this humble joy and he says it has three aspects. First he says, imagine that you were given a beautiful horse by a king. Okay, you have three consequent attitudes from that.

Firstly, you're happy to have a horse because you're richer and it's a beautiful horse, so alhamdulillah you have that farah, you have that joy. Secondly, you have the joy of knowing that the king loves you and wants to honor you. It's not just the horse, but it's the intention behind the gift that is something that gives you happiness.

And the third aspect of the joy is the knowledge that you can ride the horse and use the horse in order to serve the king. So you can actually do something that's reciprocal, do something back, and that's the third of these three joys that accompany the maqam or the state of shukr.

So we can use the horse to ride to the king's palace to gain access to his presence. Similarly, everything in the world that inspires in us the sense of shukr is a means whereby we can return to the mun'im, to the source of that blessing.

You can have a spiritual opening, a fath, just by picking a plum from a plum tree. If you have a full, deep awareness in your heart of what is going on, the divine unrequited gift, that can open you up and you can be transformed and never be the same again. Allah can put moments like that in your life.

Or you can have, on a more down-to-earth level, an awareness in your mind, this is an extraordinary gift from Allah. My intention in consuming this plum is to become stronger so that I can pray regularly and I can uphold the rights of my wife and my children. And if you make that your niyyah, even in doing basic physical bodily things like eating and drinking, then those things also become part of your suluk, part of your wayfaring.

So this is all part of the wisdom that Imam al-Ghazali is telling us about.

Why People Are Ungrateful

If shukr is the obvious attitude of the sound human soul to Allah's gifts that are mabsuta, that are stretched out to us in creation, why is it that so many people are ungrateful?

He says, almost as a complaint, few of my servants are grateful. Well, why is that?

The reason why human beings fall short of being grateful for blessings is because of ignorance and heedlessness.

Because thanks to their ignorance and heedlessness, they have been prevented from knowing the nature of the blessings. You can't imagine thanking, giving thanks for a blessing unless you have properly understood that the blessing is indeed from a source.

And they don't recognize that thanks for a blessing is indeed by using the blessing in the obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And to complete the wisdom which was to bring about the obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The real reason why we should be grateful for things is that each of those things offers us an opportunity to obey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Beauty enables us to feel grateful to Him and enables us to recognize the ugliness of vice and disorder therefore it helps us to obey Allah. The provisions, the food and the drink that He bestows upon us are also providing us with the strength with which we can worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The relationships which we enter into in this world are also contexts in which society can be ordered so as to create a space in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala can be properly worshipped.

This is the highest view of shukr. It's not just looking at the world as though it's an art gallery and being impressed by the various amazing signs of the divine artistry. Often we do that, we can't fail to be impressed but in fact the reason why we should be thankful and the reason why we are required to be thankful is because all of those blessings are calling out to be used appropriately to be understood in ways that enable us to reshape our lives to bring us back to the state of al-qalb as-salim.

Conclusion: Which is Better - Sabr or Shukr?

Imam al-Ghazali then ends with a discussion of these two principles sabr and shukr and we very briefly looked at his understanding of each of those and he asks the question which is better? Should you be in the maqam of sabr or be in the maqam of shukr? Or when they succeed each other rapidly so that one hour you are sabir and the next hour you are shakir. Is one of those times better than another for your heart?

And he indicates that different scholars have taken different views on this but essentially he is going to resolve this in something that inshallah we will be discussing in a subsequent class which is about the issue of faqr or sacred poverty.

The ghani, if he is in the state of shukr, the rich person if he is in a state of gratitude is in a high state but the poor person, the faqir if he is in a state of sabr is also in a high state so it really depends on your circumstances and he is not going to take a definite view as to which is superior. Is it always better to be sabir than to be shakir or always better to be thankful than to be patient because in fact everything depends on the spiritual mizaj, the orientation, the composition of the individual and also on the ahwal, the conditions of particular times and intentions and the particular spiritual perfume that exists in a particular gathering.

In any case we will ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us amongst the sabireen and to make us amongst the shakireen, to make us people who are not people of the surface but who understand every misfortune that comes to them and so that we can turn it to good effect and who understand and give gratitude for all of the ni'mahs, all of the blessings that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala showers upon us in this world so that we can look beyond those things to the source of those things and put those things to the purpose for which they were intended.

Closing Dua