15. THINGS THAT ASSIST IN PRACTISING PATIENCE (SABR)
Nothing is more difficult in this life than maintaining patience (sabr), be it patience for not acquiring what you love or being patient when afflicted with difficulties— especially when patience stretches for long periods of time or when people become desperate for relief (farj)
It is therefore required a person to have enough supplies to help him travel through the journey. Types of such supplies vary, some of which require contemplating the amount of hardship and thinking how much worse it could have been; knowing that there are more severe level of hardships than yours such as the calamity of losing a parent or a child and so forth; hoping to be replaced with a better situation in this life, and thinking of the reward in the Hereafter; appreciating the praise {madh) that people will accord for your patience and the reward that awaits from Allah; knowing that packing and becoming alarmed does not help the situation but rather makes it scandalous.
There are many other types of supplies that the mind (fakr) and intellect (‘aqt) can come up with. For these supplies are the only things that can be of use during the journey of patience, that a patient person ought to occupy himself with during his trials and calamity.
For indeed the destination has come near.
(Source: al-Hafiz Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-jawzl [d. 597AH] “CAPTURED THOUGHTS being” a translation of his masterpiece ‘Sayd al-K hatir)
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