In this article
In short
- 01Three things 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.
- 02No one takes on a present hardship except for a fruit deferred, and it is the mark of reason to glimpse outcomes and study destinations.
- 03The Arabic rawh holds three things at once: rest, a breeze and sweetness.
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.
- Keep the fine reward in viewThe load lightens in the measure that a person watches for the compensation and studies it.
- Await the breeze of reliefRawh: rest, a breeze and sweetness at once — and something of it is found inside the stuffing of the trial.
- Make the affliction small by two countsCount the favours already given, and count the reward still to come.
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. It is the mark of reason to glimpse outcomes and study destinations.
The wise of every nation agree that 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.
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 Arabic rawh holds three things at once: rest, a breeze and 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-Laṭīf, the Subtle, the Kind.
3. Make the affliction small by two counts
- Count the favours already given. When you fail to number them and despair of encompassing them, what you are suffering shrinks beside them — a drop in the ocean.
- Count the reward still to come. The one count looks back across your life; the other looks forward to the Day of Recompense.
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.
Medical first, alongside ruqyah — nothing here replaces a doctor’s care.
Sources
- Ibn al-Qayyim, Madārij al-Sālikīn — the passage adapted here
- Classical and practitioner sources — see Methodology → Our sources
Why hardship comes first and ease after
Ibn al-Qayyim, in Badā’i‘ al-Fawā’id, on why commands and trials press hard at first and lighten after, and what the wise person does at the start of a trial.
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