Patience Takes Courage

Patience Takes Courage

Khutbah by Sheikh Hamza Yusuf

The Command to Seek Help Through Patience and Prayer

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran speaking about Bani Israel, that among the things that He told them to do, was He told the Jews that they should seek help in prayer and patience.

"Seek help through patience and prayer."

And then He informed us that this is a very difficult thing.

"It is a grievous thing or a difficult thing."

Like the Mufassirun or the people that make commentary on the Quran said, it's a difficult thing on the self to have patience. It's also a difficult thing because some of them say that the pronoun there, وَإِنَّهَا goes back to الإسْتِعَانَة and some say it goes back to the prayer itself.

That the prayer itself is difficult. And some say that the istia'nah or the seeking help in prayer and in patience is difficult. And there are other verses in the Quran that would confirm that the meaning is related to istia'nah.

That it's difficult for somebody to take help in patience. Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when He talks about those in the Quran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:

"Who is better in speech than the one who calls to Allah and does righteous deeds, and says: 'Indeed, I am among the Muslims.'"

He says, who is better in speech than the one who calls to Allah? The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. And then he says that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, or rather those who call to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and then say that we are among the Muslims.

Repelling Evil With Good

"And good deeds are not like bad deeds. They're not equal. You can't equate a good deed with a bad deed. A good deed is much greater than a bad deed."

And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says to repel evil with good.

"And you will find that the one with whom there is animosity between you and that person, it's as if he was a good friend."

Suddenly by repelling his wrong with a right, you will find that he becomes like your friend.

The Prophet's Example of Patience

Now this is one of the things that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, who is the exemplar and really is the first and foremost in this verse itself.

وَمَنْ أَحْسَنُ قَوْلًا مِّمَّن دَعَا إِلَى اللَّهِ

Because the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is the best of us. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was somebody who was constantly patient with his enemies. People that gave him the worst of times.

Once when he gave out some wealth, one of the hypocrites said:

هَذِهِ قِسْمَةٌ لَا يُرَادُ بِهَا وَجْهُ اللَّهِ

"This is a distribution that Allah was not intended by it."

Saying it about the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. And the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was informed of what this man said in one riwayah. One of the Ansar went to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and he told him, he actually whispered in his ear. He didn't say it in public.

He said the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, became distressed to the point where he wished he had not informed him and he said:

قَدْ أُوذِيَ مُوسَىٰ بِأَكْثَرَ مِنْ هَذَا فَصَبَرَ

"They did those type of things to my brother Moses and yet he was patient."

And the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, didn't do anything about it. So he himself was the most patient and he would repel evil with good.

Transforming Enemies Into Allies

This is something that he did which is why one of his miracles is that he transformed his enemies into his allies. He actually took people that wanted to destroy him, that wanted to eliminate him, that wanted to kill him. There were over 13 assassination attempts on his life. Thirteen.

Between poison and other conspiracies to eliminate the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. Despite that, even the woman at Khaybar who gave the sheep to poison him, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, forgave her. Even though she attempted to kill him.

He actually asked her why she did it. Just to find out why she did that. So the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was the most patient of those who show patience.

The Divine Command to Be Patient

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tells him in several verses to be patient.

"Be patient. And your patience is only through God."

"Don't grieve about all of these things that are happening to you."

"And don't be constricted about their plots."

And that's advice from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Don't be constricted about their plots.

In another verse Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:

"If you have patience, and if you have taqwa, piety, dutiful awareness of your Lord and fulfilling His obligations and avoiding His prohibitions, that you will not be harmed by their plots."

This is a promise from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It's a conditional sentence. That if you do this, God promises you this.

The Command to Repel With Justice

If you show patience, and even in the command to show patience, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says:

"If you should repel justly some harm that has come to you, then do it only to the degree that they harm you with the condition of justice."

In other words, if they mutilated your people, you can't mutilate theirs. So that's with the condition of justice. In other words, don't do what the jahili Arabs, the zealot Arabs of the pre-Islamic period did, which is when somebody harmed them, they would actually increase the harm.

The Wisdom of Forbearance

One of the wise men was once cursed by a man, he insulted him. And he said to him, he said:

لَا أَدْخُلُ فِي حَرْبٍ غَالِبُهَا شَرٌّ مِنْ مَغْلُوبِهَا

"I'm not going to enter into a war. The victor is worse than the vanquished."

In other words, if I curse you, I have to do a better job than what you did to me. So if I win the cursing match, the war of curses, the victor in this war is worse than the vanquished. So I'm not even going to answer or reply, which is called forbearance, which is a type of patience.

In fact, the commentators of the divine names of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, say the difference between الصَّبُورِ and الْحَلِيمِ is that Allah is patientالصَّبُورِ because He does not punish people immediately when they do their wrongs.

But His, or when He's الْحَلِيم is when He actually doesn't punish them because He's forgiven them. But they're related. Patience and forbearance are similar.

Calling to Allah With Patience

So Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, says about those who call to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, if you call to Allah, you should know that harm is going to come to you. If harm comes to you, you should know that a good deed is better than an evil deed. In other words, repel evil with good.

And you will find that the whole point of your call, which is to win people over to the truth, will be successful. Allah will give you success because you're using principles that are divine principles that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, has promised will be effective. And when you don't use those principles, you will not get the results that you desire.

You can get vengeance, but vengeance isn't something where you win people over. You just make more enemies. That's why war is so wretched.

Because war, people might go into war, good people, but suddenly the person next to them who's their friend gets his head blown off, and all that person wants to do is blow somebody's head off on the other side. It doesn't matter who it is. That's human nature.

That's human nature. And that's as old as human beings. You can read the Iliad written by Homer about the Trojan War, and that's all it's about is people getting furious because their best friend just got killed and they just want to go out and find anybody to kill on the other side.

That's the essence of Jahiliyyah.

Only the Patient Can Achieve This

So Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, says:

"The only people that are capable of doing this are people that have patience."

You cannot achieve this unless they have a vast portion, because patience is a vast portion.

There's a hadith:

الصَّبْرُ نِصْفُ الْإِيمَانِ

"Patience is half of faith itself."

If you have patience, you've got half of faith. What's the other half?

وَالْيَقِينُ الْإِيمَانُ كُلُّهُ

"And yaqeen is all of faith."

But patience is from faith itself. And yaqeen or certainty results in patience. You can't have one without the other.

Which is why Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, said:

"We made them imams. We made them leaders in the earth. The Bani Israel. From among them, we made leaders. Why? Because they were patient. Because they had certainty about our signs."

Patience in the Modern World

So patience is a virtue that is almost absent from the modern world. And the modern world is in some ways designed to drive you mad or to teach you patience. I mean, that's the way it's set up.

Because you get on the phone and they say if you want this, wait for this. If you want that, wait for that. If you want this, wait for this. And 15 minutes later, you've forgotten what you were calling for in the first place. That's what happened. It's designed to either drive you insane or to teach you patience.

There was a picture in the newspaper the other day of somebody trying to get their passport and the person was actually he had dived over all of the other people. It was just a crowd around this little window. And this man had jumped over the people and he was trying to get his passport in over everybody else.

So the concept of waiting in line, just getting in line, creating a line. I was at the Kaaba and somebody, there was this person South Asian with an American accent trying to convince people if they could just line up, they

The Concept of Ithar - Preferring Others

And the Arabs, in the beauty of their language because their language is filled with opposites contained in the same roots. Very common in the Arabic language. Like, qastu wal-iqsat, justice and injustice being in the root qasata. Al-qasitun wal-muqsitun. Qasitun are unjust, muqsitun are just. The same root.

If you look at the root for deference to others, it's ithar. Where you actually prefer other people. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says about the ansar:

"They are people that prefer other people to themselves even when they're in need."

Which is why they have such a high station. And Allah says in the Quran:

"Be the helpers of God."

One of the ways you help God is by helping others. Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, The best of you are the best of you to God's dependents.

(خَيْرُكُمْ أَنفَعُكُمْ لِعِيَالِ اللَّهِ - khairukum anf'akum li'iyaalil laah)

The Rise of Selfishness

But if you're in the me, me, me mode, the nafsi, nafsi mode, and if you don't think that mode's increasing, I'll give you one example. In a recent book, which you can't buy in a store because they don't like you to see this book.

But I happened to know somebody that worked in the corporation that published the internal document. So I got a copy of it. But I wasn't supposed to get that copy. I don't know if it was something I did wrong, if it was, astaghfirullah. But it was interesting information. It was called the Emerging Consumer.

And there were four new types of consumer being identified. The hedonists, which is translated into Arabic as (شَهْوَانِيُّونَ - shahwaniyoon). Right? People that all they care about is appetite (شَهْوَة - shahwah). The get-rich-quick males, and then the liberated females, and the last one were called aimless teenagers (الْمُرَاهِقُونَ الْغَاوُونَ - al-muraahiqoon al-ghawoon)

Now what was interesting is this was done on a large study. They'd actually interviewed thousands of people to do this statistical analysis.

And what they said was the me-me group was becoming increasingly larger. So that's the type of world. And the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, Whoever lives amongst you will see (أَثَرَ - athar). That's the other word from (إِيثَارِ - ithar). (أَثَرَ - athara) is selfishness.

That's what it is. It's selfishness. When you think only about yourself, you don't think about other people. It's just about me, me, me. Me, myself, and I. Some people's favorite words.

The Disease of "I"

Once a man knocked on the Prophet's door, peace and blessings be upon him, and he said, Who's there? And he said, (أَنَا - ana). And the Prophet said:

(أَنَا أَنَا كَأَنَّهُ كَرِهَ - ana ana ka'annahu kariha)

He just repeated (أَنَا أَنَا - ana ana) as if he disliked it.

Don't assume I'm gonna recognize your voice or I know who you are. Tell me who you are. It's me. That's a disease. In Islam, that's a disease. And the cure for it is one, patience.

Patience on the Road

Because patience involves actually thinking about other people. For instance, if you're driving in the road and you have to learn either patience or you end up probably endangering other people's lives which some people don't really care about either. But on the road, patience.

You have to learn patience. I was in Medina and one man cut off another man and he started honking over and over again and I told him, you know, we're in Medina it's probably better not to honk because it's:

"People that harm believers and they didn't do anything."

So the person next, he didn't cut you off but he has to hear the honking. So you're harming people that didn't do anything to you. I said it's better not to honk unless it's an emergency. But just to let them know you're angry make a du'a for them.

(يَهْدِيكَ اللهُ - yahdeekal laah)

"May Allah guide you."

The Importance of Good Supplications

I was in Jordan and a taxi driver got cut off and the man said:

(اللَّهُ يُخْرِبُ بَيْتَكَ - allaahu yukhrib baytak)

"May Allah destroy your house."

And I told him, you know, you should change that du'a because Allah is answering that prayer. Arab houses are being destroyed all over the place. Maybe it's because they keep saying (اللَّهُ يُخْرِبُ بَيْتَكَ - allaahu yukhrib baytak) and they're getting answered.

Why don't you say:

(يَهْدِيكَ اللهُ، اللهُ يُصْلِحُ حَالَكَ، غَفَرَ اللهُ لَكَ، رَحِمَكَ اللهُ، يَا أَخِي اِتَّقِ اللَّهَ فِي الْمُسْلِمِينَ - yahdeekal laah, allaahu yuslih haalak, ghafaral laahu lak, rahimakal laah, yaa akhi ittaqil laaha fil muslimeen)

"May Allah guide you. May Allah rectify your condition. May Allah forgive you. May Allah have mercy on you. O my brother, fear Allah regarding the Muslims."

You know, there's other things you can say. The Prophet said:

(قِتَالُ الْمُسْلِمِ كُفْرٌ وَسِبَابُهُ فُسُوقٌ - qitaalul muslim kufruw wa sibaabuhu fusuq)

"Fighting a Muslim is disbelief, and cursing him is profligacy."

It's degradation. It's something low. It's a low thing.

Patience as a Lost Virtue

So patience is a virtue that is almost absent in the modern world. Everybody, people get on the fax machine what's wrong with this thing? You know, they should upgrade this system. It used to be, it took months to get a letter. It took months.

You just waited. People just waited. It's called stoicism. The (رَوَاقِيُّونَ - rawaqiyoon) the Arabs called them. Stoics, people that just are patient because they realize it's just more intelligent to be patient. You're just expending all that negative energy creating all these free radicals increasing your age, you know, aging process doing all these things that are harmful for you.

The Quran says it. You just have to read the Quran. Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, commanded the Prophet many times.

"Be patient about what they say to you."

"Be patient like the (أُولُو الْعَزْمِ - oolul 'azmi) from the Prophets before you were patient."

And the Prophet was the most patient of people. But he's been commanded to patience. Just to be patient. To be patient about other people. To give people the time of day. To actually just do some ithar. To prefer other people.

When they're in line. Or trying to find a parking place. Really. This is something that the Muslims have to inculcate in themselves. And according to the Quran, Allah will not elevate a people unless they show these qualities. It's one of the conditions for tamkeen.

Patience Must Precede Establishment

For establishment. One of the Salaf asked Hasan al-Basri, What is better tamkeen or sabr alal bala? What is better? To be established in the earth or to be patient with tribulation? He said, The second one has to precede the first. In other words, you won't get the first one if you don't have the second one.

And that's why if you look at the first 13 years of the Prophet's life, it's all just being patient. Not doing anything. Dealing with the situation by showing kindness. Being patient with these people.

"Beautiful patience. And Allah is the One whose help is sought."

The beautiful patience is one where there's no complaint. And some of the ulama say that that verse indicates that if you complain, but are still patient, it doesn't negate your patience.

Patience as a Form of Courage

So patience is one of the great virtues. Some of them place it under the category of courage in the moral virtues. What the Arabs call (أُمَّهَاتُ الْفَضَائِلِ - ummahaatul fadaa'il). The matrices of the virtues. Where all the virtues emanate from. The moral virtues. The patience is a type of courage because it's courageous to show patience.

It's an act of will. And that's why the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

(الصَّبْرُ عِنْدَ الصَّدْمَةِ الْأُولَى - assabru 'indas sadmatil oolaa)

"Patience is when the calamity first happens."

It's not later when you have time to think about it. It's when it first happens. And the opposite of it is (فَزَع - faza'). It's where you lose control. You completely lose it, like they say in this culture. You lose it.

And one of the gifts of those who show patience in this world is that they are freed from (الْفَزَعُ الْأَكْبَرُ - al-faza'ul akbar) in the next world. When everybody else is in a total state of anxiety and dread before the ominous reality of Judgment Day, these people are in a state of (سَكِينَة - sakeenah). They're not troubled by it. Because Allah, glorified and exalted is He, promised them that.

The Many Gifts of Patience

So this is one of the gifts. There are many other gifts that Allah, glorified and exalted is He, promises. Allah says:

"Have patience and have (مُصَابَرَة - musaabarah)."

The ulema differ about what that means. Some of them say that (مُصَابَرَة - musaabarah) is where it's patience towards an enemy outside of yourself. For instance (شَيْطَان - shaytan) or a martial enemy, somebody trying to conquer your lands, that you have to show patience because victory doesn't come immediately.

It takes time. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

(الْحَرْبُ سِجَالٌ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَهُمْ - al-harbu sijalun bainana wa bainahum)

"War between me and my opponents is one of attrition. One day for them, another day for me."

This is what this promise. Even if there's no victory for the people of righteousness in this world, they're promised victory in the next world. Somebody might live their life and never see that. But in the akhirah, they're promised that.

The Reality of Opposition

So anybody that attempts to go out into the world, to make the world a better place, not for themselves, because you can just go into you can go into retreat, but actually for other people, for your children, for your society, you're going to come up against people that don't want that because there's people that benefit from those things that are harmful out there.

There's people that benefit from selling arms. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said:

(بَائِعُ السَّلَاحِ عِنْدَ الْفِتْنَةِ مَلْعُونٌ - baa'i'us salaahi 'indal fitnati mal'oon)

"The one who sells armaments during conflict, periods of conflict, is damned to hell. It's a cursed person."

Because it's an evil and odious thing to do that, to sell arms when people are suffering.

The Cost of War

Armaments is the largest industry on the planet. So if you start opposing armaments, you want to see that change because, I mean, this country has a 7.7 trillion dollar deficit. People don't think about what that means.