Patience

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him and seek His assistance. We seek refuge with Allah from the evil within ourselves and from the evil of our deeds.

Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him. Yet whomever He allows to go astray, none can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no God worthy of worship except Allah alone. He has no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger.

O you who believe, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except in the state of Islam.

O you who believe, fear Allah and speak the truth. He will direct you to do righteous good deeds and will forgive your sins. And whomsoever obeys Allah and His messenger, he has indeed achieved a great achievement.

Patience

Brothers and sisters in Islam, today our khutbah is about patience.

We begin with a story that happened in Little Rock, Arkansas about two years ago. A grandmother was on her way to the mall and she stopped at a stop sign and she took a little bit too long. So the man in the car behind her got impatient. He took out his gun and he just fired in the direction of her car. She didn't really hear or register the gunshot and she continued. And when she arrived to the mall, she had a toddler that was in the back seat — he was dead. They mentioned that this was the second fatality, the second incident due to someone's impatience in that same exact month.

The Age of Instant Gratification

We notice this everywhere. When you stop at a red light and when it turns green, if you delay just two seconds, the car behind you honks. Just two seconds. Or you see all kinds of signs of impatience. When you press the elevator button, it lights up, and then a few seconds later you press it again — as if that's how the mechanism works. It will not make it come any faster. But just look at the impatience in our lives.

There was a huge study conducted using 6.7 million internet users, and they found that the majority of people will abandon an online video if it takes more than two seconds to load. Look at our level of impatience. If it takes more than two seconds, the majority of people will abandon a video. Another study showed that the majority of people only read 20% of the material on a page. And sometimes people don't link reading with patience, but the inability to read an entire article is actually lack of patience. Most people read just 20% of the material on a page.

One in four will abandon a page if it takes more than four seconds to load. 25% of people — if the page takes more than four seconds, they will abandon it. And if it takes more than 10 seconds, 50% of the people will leave. Amazon estimates that they stand to lose about 1.6 billion dollars per year due to one-second delays on their page. Just one second.

So we're in the age and in the world of instant gratification. Everything is getting faster and faster, and because things are only getting faster, nothing is helping us become more patient. USA Today reported that the majority of Americans will not wait in line longer than 15 minutes. Half of them said they would never return to an establishment that made them wait — not because the food was bad, they just had to wait.

The problem with this is that it translates into other areas of our life. It will translate into how we deal with one another, and it will translate into how we deal with Allah. One in five people admitted to being rude to someone who was slow in serving them — rude to another human being just because they were slow. They served you in the end, but you're being rude to them just because they were slow.

Impatience in Du'a

This impatience translates into our acts of worship as well. People who are used to things happening quickly don't have the patience to ask Allah. And when you ask Allah, you're supposed to persist and persevere — ask constantly, over and over and over again. And the Prophet ﷺ told us what happens when you're in a rush for your du'a to be answered: you put yourself at risk of not having your du'a answered at all.

In Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ says:

Your du'a will be responded to so long as you don't rush it — saying, "I called upon my Lord and He didn't answer me." This person is rushing it. He wants to make du'a and find the package next to him immediately when he's done. But the Prophet ﷺ said that you will be responded to so long as you don't rush it like that. So you put yourself at risk of not even having your du'a answered.

But the point is that people are so impatient they don't have the patience to ask Allah with the necessary persistence and perseverance. When we need something from Allah, we find the best times. You wake up in the last hour of the night. You fast because when you break your fast, there is a du'a that will not be refused. People taking advantage of these times and constantly coming back to Allah and asking Him — that requires a lot of patience.

But due to this impatience, people now try to find shortcuts. And you'll see this more overseas, where people try to find a magical formula to make their thing happen. Someone will say, "If you recite Al-Fatihah 1,000 times in a night, whatever you ask for will happen." An imam we met in Trinidad said a man came to him and said, "Give me a du'a to make me patient because I don't want to wait for it." And even in his question, he's showing impatience — he just magically wants it to happen because he doesn't want to wait for it.

The Greatness of the Reward of Patience

Brothers and sisters, the truth is, patience is difficult. And the proof that it's difficult is that its reward is great. The scholars said: when the reward is great, that means the action itself is something that is difficult.

Allah in Surah Az-Zumar says:

Those who are patient will get their reward without hisab. So what does it mean, without hisab? Some of the scholars said:

Meaning, without any counting, without any specific measurement.

Imam Al-Awza'i rahimahu Allah said:

He said, their reward will not be weighed and it will not be measured, but they will just be given scoop after scoop of reward — because they were patient. The reward is great because the action was difficult.

Other Mufassireen said it means they will not be held to account in front of Allah. No scales will be brought forth, their deeds will not be weighed. And this is a moment that no one is looking forward to — when you stand in front of Allah and He will ask you. And the Prophet ﷺ said:

With no translator between you and Allah. And Allah will go through your records and ask you about sins and mistakes. No one is looking forward to that. But the patient — they don't have to go through that. Their deeds will not be weighed, they will not be asked, they will get the reward without being held accountable. Great reward, because the action itself was great and it was difficult.

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan at-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2399; graded Sahih)

The trial, the difficulty, the test will continue to be upon the believing man or the believing woman — in themselves, perhaps in their health personally, and in their children and in their wealth — until they meet Allah and they have no sin on them whatsoever. Meaning these difficulties expiate the sins and remove the sins.

And that is why Imam Ahmad rahimahullah used to say:

He used to say, "Had it not been for the calamities, we would come forth bankrupt on the Day of Judgment with nothing." But these calamities remove so many sins. So we see that because the act was difficult, the reward was great.

The Meaning of Patience

Al-Sabr — الصبر — linguistically, في اللغة بمعنى الحبس, means to contain or to imprison. And because it's difficult, we don't like to be told to be patient. We don't like when the solution is patience. When someone goes to an imam and they list their problem, and they speak to him for an hour detailing their problem, then the imam at the end just says, "Be patient, insha'Allah" — they become so angered, because they feel it's a cop-out. This imam doesn't know enough about psychology, he doesn't know enough to give me practical steps. So he just throws this whole "be patient" thing on me, because he doesn't know anything else to say.

But brothers and sisters, many times there are problems where the solution is only patience, and there's nothing else. Someone's loved one passes away — the only solution is patience. There's no formula here that will make things better. So the solution is just patience.

Patience in the Story of Musa

We see this in the Qur'an. Allah will highlight a problem and then just mention patience as the solution, because sometimes that's the only solution. This happens in Surah Al-A'raf. Allah says:

The leaders, the mala' around Fir'aun, said: "Are you going to allow Musa and his people to make mischief in the land and abandon you and your gods?" So Fir'aun responds: "We will kill their sons and spare their women, and we indeed surely have power over them." That's verse 127. The next verse is the response of Musa:

That's it. That's the solution. They don't have anything else — no power, no army, no arms. So Musa alayhi salam said to his people: "Just seek the assistance of Allah and be patient." So sometimes patience is the only answer. We shouldn't hate the idea of being told to be patient, because it's the only solution. But it's a solution that, if we took it seriously, would solve so many of our problems.

A Story About a Young Man and His Wife

A speaker said: I was sitting at the masjid and a sheikh was giving a talk. After the lecture I was sitting with the sheikh speaking, and then a young man came — he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He approached the older sheikh and said, "Ya Sheikh, I have a problem. I just don't love my wife." The sheikh said, "Did she do anything wrong? Is there anything wrong with her?" He said, "She doesn't do anything wrong, there's nothing wrong with her. I just don't love her." The sheikh told him, "Go home and be patient with your wife."

The young speaker thought to himself: How is this good advice to give a young man? We're used to practical steps — step one, roses; step two, chocolate. We like steps like that. But he told him, "Go home and be patient."

Then time passed — maybe a year or two — and that young man came to this speaker at one of his lectures. He said, "Do you remember me?" He reminded him of the incident. "Yes," he said. "Speaking of that — what happened between you and your wife?" He said, "I took the sheikh's advice to heart." And this is a rare type of young man — you tell him to just be patient and that's all he does, he takes it seriously. He said, "I went home and I started to be patient with my wife. Then within no time, I became so madly in love with her that from work I would call her. And she would say, 'What do you want?' And I would say, 'Nothing — just to hear your voice.'"

We Will All Be Tested

Patience is something that we need to acquire, because we are going to be tested — no doubt. In Surah Al-'Ankabut, Allah says:

Do people think just because they say "we believe" that they're not going to be tested and they're going to be left alone? It's a rhetorical question — it's saying that you will be tested. You are going to be tested by Allah. Likewise in Surah Al-Insan:

So we see even here that we're going to be tested. If we know we're going to be tested, then definitely we're going to need to be patient with the tests. And if you're patient, nothing will change — and you get reward. Or if you're not patient, nothing will change — and you get no reward.

Someone's child dies. So he says إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ. Will the child come back? He's patient, but the child didn't come back — yet he got reward. The other person, their child dies. They're not patient. They scream and they break the furniture and everything. Will the child come back? No. What's the difference between the two situations? One of them was patient and got reward. The other wasn't patient and nothing changed. It's still the same outcome in the end. But it's about getting reward with Allah.

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2999)

The situation of the believer is amazing. All his situations will be good for him, and that is not for anyone except the believer. If something good happens, he thanks Allah and that will be good for him. And if something bad happens, he is patient, and that will be good for him.

The Name "Affan" and Containing Desire

We all know 'Uthman ibn 'Affan radi Allahu 'anhu. But the scholars said, why was his father given this nickname? His father's name, his nickname, was Affan. They said: لِأَنَّهُ فِي الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ عَفَّ — during the time of Jahiliyyah, before Islam, he contained and imprisoned his desire against women and wine. So even though he could have, he stopped himself from that. So they called him Affan.

And in Surah An-Nur, Allah is mentioning getting married, allowing people to get married, and encouraging marriage. And then He says:

As for those who are incapable — they don't have any of the monetary means to get married — then let them يَسْتَعْفِفُوا, let them hold back their desire and keep themselves chaste. But then what's beautiful — Allah says حَتَّىٰ يُغْنِيَهُمُ اللَّهُ مِن فَضْلِهِ. So they're keeping themselves chaste until Allah gets them married? No. Until Allah gives them wealth? No. Allah says: until Allah gives them from His bounties — not just gives them what they're missing, but gives them more.

And so the scholars said:

Whoever stops himself from the haram, Allah will give him from the halal and multiply it further. And that's why the verse didn't say He'll just help them get married, or help them have the wealth to get married — but He'll keep giving them from His bounties. That is from the results and from the fruits of being patient.

أَقُولُ قَوْلِي هَذَا وَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ الْعَظِيمَ لِي وَلَكُمْ مِنْ جَمِيعِ الذُّنُوبِ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ، فَيَفُوزُ الْمُسْتَغْفِرُونَ — Ask Allah for His forgiveness. Indeed, those who ask for His forgiveness shall prosper.

How to Become Patient

الحمد لله رب العالمين، والصلاة والسلام على رسوله الأمين، وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين. So the question then becomes: how can one become patient? And what are the things that help us become more patient?

First: Through Practice

The first thing is through practicing being patient. And the Prophet ﷺ said in Sahih al-Jami':

(Sahih al-Jami', Hadith 2328)

If you want to become knowledgeable, you do that through constantly learning. And to be forbearing, to be able to contain your anger, you need to do that by constantly containing your anger. It's through practice. And so being patient is not through a du'a or some magical formula, but it's through training yourself to be patient.

Second: Recognizing That Calamities Draw You Closer to Allah

The second thing is that when someone recognizes that these calamities draw them closer to Allah, or that Allah afflicted them so they can get nearer to Him, then that makes it easier to bear through any kind of calamity. And the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5645)

Whoever Allah wants good from, He afflicts them, He tests them with something in their life. And in another famous hadith:

(Sunan at-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2396; graded Hasan)

Indeed if Allah loves the people, He will test them. Someone might say, what kind of love is this — if Allah loves me, He'll test me with difficulty? But the truth is, the way we make du'a to Allah during a time of difficulty is not like when everything is okay. The way we pray to Allah during a time of difficulty is not like when everything is okay. And when Allah loves you, the whole point is that you become closer to Him — and nothing guarantees that more than when you have a problem or a calamity. You will immediately rush to Allah.

We mentioned the story of a man who said he had a personal calamity. So he would wake up for Qiyam for a year or a year and a half — every single night. Which also means he never missed 'Isha and never missed Fajr, because he was always waking up for Qiyam. He said then Allah fixed all his problems. And then he said: for 9 years, I've never gotten up for Qiyam again, and I've constantly missed Fajr. And the point is: when he had difficulty, he got close to Allah — that was the result that was intended. So when Allah is testing you, He's bringing you nearer to Him. And when you're aware of that, it decreases the weight of that difficulty and helps you become patient.

Third: Calamities Increase Your Rank in Al-Jannah

Difficulties increase the individual in rank. The Prophet ﷺ mentioned in a hadith that Allah might decree a level for you in Al-Jannah, and with your deeds you fall short of reaching that level. Allah decreed this person will be at this level in Al-Jannah, but their work will only get them to a lower level. How does Allah get them to that higher level? He will test them with difficulty. And then the beautiful part of the hadith — the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 3090; graded Sahih)

Then Allah will aid him in being patient upon that. And then he will reach that level that was written for him.

Fourth: Difficulties Expiate Sins

The third benefit is that difficulties expiate sins. And the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5640; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2572)

There is not any calamity that befalls a believer except that Allah will expiate some of their sins — even a thorn pricking your finger, a small cut like that, and Allah will take some sins away with that. And we know from another hadith that a man asked the Prophet ﷺ:

(Sunan at-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2398; graded Sahih)

"Which of the people are tested the most?" And he told him that it's the Prophets, the Anbiya'. Then the righteous. And then in varying levels of iman, people will be tested according to their level of religiosity. And that is from the mercy of Allah — that Allah doesn't test you with more than what you can bear. And what's beautiful about that is it's telling us that whatever Allah tests you with, it's something that you can handle. Because if you couldn't handle it, it wouldn't come to you, it would come to someone else. So you can handle and you can be patient with whatever Allah is testing you with. And Allah will not test you beyond your capacity or beyond your ability.

Three Types of Patience

Why are we talking about patience and calamity specifically? Because the scholars said you need patience upon the obedience to Allah — your entire life waking up for Fajr, putting on hijab your entire life. And how many times do we run into people who ran out of patience and stopped praying or took off their hijab. So the scholars mentioned you have to be patient upon obedience to Allah.

Then you have to be patient in staying away from the haram. Because the haram is alluring and enticing — it's beckoning you, especially nowadays from every corner. So you have to be patient in abstaining from the haram.

And the third thing you have to be patient with is the decree of Allah — whatever difficulties, tests, and calamities. So when you know that this has already been written since before the creation of the heavens and the earth, it makes it easier to be patient and to bear through the difficulty. And as we mentioned, you know that no matter what you do, you're not going to change the situation. Like we said in the example of someone whose child has died — may Allah protect your children. If they are patient or not, the child will not come back. The only difference in the outcomes will be: did they receive reward from Allah or not.

With that, we ask Allah to make us of those who recognize the truth as clear truth and follow the best of it, and to make us of those who recognize falsehood as clear falsehood and abstain from it.

We ask Allah to grant victory and ease to the Muslims. يا سميع الدعاء، وصلِّ اللهم وبارك على مبعوث رحمةً للعالمين، وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين، وقوموا إلى صلاتكم ورحمة الله.