The Second Matter

Physical calamities grow when they are seen as great, and shrink when they are seen as small. For example, when a person at night gives attention in his imagination to something, it may become larger in his mind; but if he ignores it, it disappears. Just as a swarm of attacking bees becomes more aggressive when one tries to drive them away, while they disperse if ignored, so too do calamities become more severe when attention is given to them. Through anxiety, such a calamity, besides affecting the physical body, casts roots into the heart and brings about a spiritual calamity upon which it can rest and continue to spread. When, through tawakkulTrust in Allah after making the necessary effort and fulfilling one’s responsibilities. and contentment with His decree, one dispels that anxiety, the calamity gradually softens and, like an uprooted tree, eventually dries up and disappears completely.

I once expressed this truth as follows:

O despairing one, cease lamenting over calamities;
place your trust in Allah in the face of misfortune.

For know that your lament itself
is a calamity within your calamity.

If you find the One Who sends the calamity,
know that the calamity is for you a grace, a gift.

If you do not find Him, know that
the whole world is torment and pain.

Why do you complain of a small affliction
when countless afflictions threaten you?

Come, place your trust in Allah!

Smile, with trust in Allah, in the face of calamity,
so that it too may smile back.

As the affliction smiles upon you,
it will shrink and be transformed.

Indeed, just as in a quarrel a smile directed at a serious opponent can calm tempers, transform resentment into good humour, and cause enmity to diminish and disappear, so too does tawakkulTrust in Allah after making the necessary effort and fulfilling one’s responsibilities. bring about the same effect in the face of calamity.

The Third Matter

Every age has its own character. In these times of heedlessness, calamity has taken on a different form. In certain times and for certain people, calamity is not a misfortune, but a favour from Allah. Since I regard the sick and others afflicted by calamities in our time as fortunate—provided their calamity does not harm their religious life—I feel neither aversion toward illness and calamity nor pity for those afflicted by them.

For example, whenever a sick young person has visited me, I have observed that, compared with his peers, he has a stronger attachment to his religious duties and to the Hereafter. From this I have understood that such illnesses are not calamities for such people, but a kind of favour from Allah. For although those illnesses cause hardship in their fleeting and transient worldly life, they are beneficial for their eternal life, since they count as a kind of worship. Were they to recover, then, because of the intoxication of youth and the dissipation of this age, they would certainly be unable to preserve the state they experienced during illness; indeed, they would perhaps occupy themselves with unlawful pleasures.