Threethingsthatmakepatienceeasier

Three things, Ibn al-Qayyim writes in Madārij al-Sālikīn, rouse a person to patience in trial: keeping the fine reward in view; awaiting the breeze of relief; and making the affliction small by counting blessings.

1. Keep the fine reward in view

In the measure that a person watches for the reward, trusts in it and studies it, the load of the trial lightens — because he is looking at the compensation. Every bearer of a heavy hardship finds it lighter for the sweetness he sees at its end. Without this, the interests of neither this world nor the next would ever get done: no one takes on a present hardship except for a fruit deferred, for the soul is infatuated with the immediate — and it is precisely the mark of reason to glimpse outcomes and study destinations.

The wise of every nation agree: bliss is not reached through bliss. Whoever keeps company with comfort will part with comfort; rest is bought at the price of toil, and rest in the abode of rest is measured by the toil before it. As the poet says:

Resolves come sized to the people of resolve — and noble deeds come sized to the noble.

Small things loom large in a small man's eye — and great things shrink in the eye of the great.

The point: watching for the good outcome helps you bear both what you chose to carry and what you never chose.

2. Await the breeze of relief

The rawh of relief — its rest, its breeze, its sweetness. Waiting for it, studying it, watching for it lightens the burden, especially when hope is strong or relief is certain. Inside the very stuffing of the trial a person then finds something of the breeze of relief and its comfort — hidden kindnesses, and relief paid in advance. By this (and more) is understood the meaning of Allah's name al-Latīf — the Subtle, the Kind.

3. Make the affliction small — by two counts

• Count Allah's favours upon you now. When you fail to number them and despair of encompassing them, what you are suffering shrinks beside them — a drop out of an ocean.
• Recall the favours gone before. The one count looks back across your life; the other looks forward to the Day of Recompense — one is in this world, the other on the day of reward.

It is told of a worshipping woman that she stumbled and her finger was severed — and she laughed. Someone with her said: "You laugh, with your finger cut off?" She said: "I shall speak to you at the measure of your understanding: the sweetness of its reward made me forget the bitterness of its memory." A hint that his mind could not carry what lies above that station — the vision of the One who sent the trial, the witnessing of His good choice in it, delight in thanking Him and being pleased with Him, meeting what comes from Him with praise. As the poet said:

If it grieved me that you reached me with a hurt — it gladdened me that I had crossed your mind.