Sabr (patience) is from eemaan. The importance of Sabr in the life of eeman is like the importance of head attached to a body. Without sabr, eeman is not eeman. In a hadith it is being said that the one who is given sabr, indeed it is the greatest blessing and we also know that eeman is the greatest blessing. It might look contradictory if eemaan is the greatest blessing or the sabr, but when we ponder over this we will get it clear. Our understanding of sabr is very limited for we think sabr is to remain silent when someone dies but the meaning is sabr is strange and astonishing. Sabr is to have control over forbidden desires. If we look at Abu Talib, the uncle of our beloved Prophet SAW, he loved the Prophet SAW so much throughout his life; he earned the enmity of others for the Prophet’s sake. When the meccans boycotted Prophet SAW and the believers, he too remained with him even though he didn’t bring eemaan. On his death bed, when our Prophet SAW was stressing him to utter the words of eeaan and Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab were preventing him from accepting Islam, Abu Talib told his beloved nephew that he knows for sure that he is truthful and his deen is the best of all but he fears that people will say that he accepted islam out of fear for the death and thus he died without accepting islam. Now Abu Talib was such a nice man and for the love he showed to our beloved Prophet SAW, even today we could only mention him with respect even though he died on kufr. What we have to see is that the thing that stopped him from accepting Islam is because he couldn’t have sabr over his nafs fearing what the people would say.
If we look at our own lives, when we give up obedience of Allah Swt, it is because we don’t have sabr on our nafs like what the society will say and so on. For example if a man is asked to give up taking interest, he would fear what status he will have in people’s eyes if his wealth decreases, if he loses two factories and come down to a single shop. Same goes with many traditions that people don’t want to give up for the sake of society even though they know that it is not allowed. This is because of the lack of sabr on their nafs and thus losing the life of eemaan. So now we know how sabr is strongly linked to eeman. Sabr is when we control our self from taking revenge out of anger on someone when they harm us, say with their words. Whatever has to be said, a person has said and now the matter is in our hands, either we can use it for the benefit of akhirat by forgiving him or we can waste it by taking revenge. Our beloved Prophet SAW never took revenge for his own self throughout his life. When a person gets strong contact of Allah SWT, the words of people become insignificant, neither their praise will affect them nor their humiliating words. And this is the highest status for the people of Allah SWT will only bother about their status in the eyes of Allah SWT fearing for any sort of humiliation in His sight.
This is like those magicians during Prophet Musa AS’s time. When fir’aun threatened them that he would kill them for accepting Islam, it didn’t bother them. Once a dervish visited a king and he uttered something that offended the King and the king asked him to stop. The dervish laughed and king got angry and told him that he will throw him into the prison. The dervish laughed again and when the king asked what is making him laugh, the dervish replied, “I do not know how old I am and it doesn’t matter for me if I live inside the prison or outside the prison for the rest of my life and life after death is not in your hands and so I do not worry.”Hazrat Gangohi RA was almost compared to Imam Abu Haneefa RA. Once Hazrat Gangohi RA didn’t write any letters for a long time and when he was asked about it, he said he doesn’t have any status to say anything good but he said that he is in such a state that he doesn’t care what the people say about him. Today we look at the fault of others but we don’t at our own faults and this is the biggest fault when cannot see our own faults. When a person knows he is sick, he will take medicine and when he doesn’t know he is sick, he is moving towards destruction. When one knows his own faults, other’s faults will become insignificant in his eyes. This is like when one has wounds throughout his body from head to toe and he is experiencing extreme pain, a scratch in other’s body won’t affect him. There was a poet who was not religious but when he died, someone saw him in the highest stage of paradise and when asked about it, he said that before his death he uttered following words, “O Allah! I remained heedless throughout my life but I had eemaan in You and Your Rasul and couple of couplets” and by the generosity of Allah, he was forgiven and attained salvation. So things can happen like this too and we should never look down others. So worry about your own faults.
A person who gets the contact of Allah SWT gets strong eyesight with which he sees his faults more clearly and is occupied in worrying about himself without turning to others faults. A small evil in himself will worry him and make him restless. When a person becomes more inclined towards cleanliness and he remains clean, a small stain will worry him a lot. There was a time when he used to be in dirty clothes and he never bothered about that. There were times when a person won’t feel much when he misses salah but then he comes to a state that when he misses the first saff or first takbir, he gets worried. When we look at other believers going through trials, we should not think that they are facing that because of their sins. We should think that Allah SWT is raising their status through the trials. When gold is purified, it is subjected to extreme temperatures when it gets rid of impurities and shines and so does Allah SWT purify believers by passing them through trials. In a hadeeth it is said that the jannah is so blessed and filled with enjoyment but surrounded by trials and tribulations while hell is the worst place to live with full of torment but surrounded by desires and luxuries. The trials for the believers in this world are the gifts of jannah. So we should have husn-e-dhan (good opinion) when we think of other muslims but when we pass through trials, we should think that this is because of our sins and turn to Allah SWT in repentance.
It is important that we sit with deeni people as sitting with ignorant people can be detrimental. Once Prophet SAW was asked, “In whose majlis should one sit?” Prophet SAW replied, “When you see three characteristics in a person, sit with him. They are: 1) when you see his face, it reminds you of Allah SWT 2) He speaks good things like about deeni knowledge and abstains from unnecessary talks 3) His acts remind you of akhirat.” When one sees such a person, he should be considered very blessed and sit in his majlis. If we look for persons like Junaid Baghdadi or Shibi, we will never find such people and it is enough if we find people of above qualities without looking for those flying in the air or walking on the sea for we will never find them and if we keep waiting for them, we will remain like how we are. Let Allah SWT help us all to act on what we hear, write and read. Ameen
