Episode 16 - Allah is Kind to His Servants

We continue to build our love for Allah on foundations that are not affected by variables. The first of these is contemplating the Names and Attributes of Allah the Almighty. We said that through this contemplation, you turn affliction into a reason for loving Allah instead of it shaking this love. We contemplate Allah's wisdom, His tenderness, His help, His mercy, and His forgiveness. In this station, we contemplate the kindness of our Lord, the Most Merciful. Our Lord, the Almighty, said: {Allah is Kind to His servants} [Al-Shura: 19]... No matter how severe your affliction, you must see kindness from your Lord, the Almighty, if you have a good opinion of Him, the Almighty. Rather, the more you deal well with your afflictions, the more the manifestations of kindness increase and your understanding of His kindness deepens, the Most Merciful.

Contemplate the kindness of Allah with His Prophet and His beloved Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the most difficult moments of his life... When he returned from At-Taif, and its nobles mocked him and its fools threw stones at him, and now he is on his way back to Makkah where mockery, denial, and oppression await him. His loyal and affectionate wife Khadijah (may Allah be pleased with her) had died, and his uncle Abu Talib, who used to protect the Prophet and sacrifice himself for him and his children... And the pain increased because Abu Talib died a disbeliever. The Messenger of Allah had no refuge or protection in Makkah. And all of this was after ten years of the mission, during which his companions were being tortured, scattered, and killed, and the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not know how long this suffering would last.

The return from At-Taif was the most difficult station in the life of the Prophet (peace be upon him). He described it to our mother Aisha in the agreed-upon hadith: ((I set out while I was worried, and I did not come to my senses until I was at the Horn of the Foxes))... The Horn of the Foxes is an area about 35 kilometers from At-Taif. The Prophet walked this distance in the heat of the sun and the loneliness of the desert without feeling it because of the intensity of his worry!

Yet... the kindness of Allah, the Almighty, comes to ease the burden on His Messenger (peace be upon him) in the most difficult moments. At this moment, it is as if Allah, the Almighty, put all the disbelievers in a cage of accusation and gave His Messenger absolute freedom to judge, to execute the judgment he wishes. In the continuation of the agreed-upon hadith that we mentioned, he (peace be upon him) said: ((I raised my head and there I was under a cloud that had shaded me. I looked and there was Jibril (peace be upon him) calling me. He said: Allah, the Almighty, has heard the words of your people to you and what they responded to you with. He has sent to you the Angel of the Mountains to command him as you wish. The Angel of the Mountains called me and greeted me, then said: O Muhammad, Allah has heard the words of your people to you, and I am the Angel of the Mountains. My Lord has sent me to you to command me as you wish. What do you wish? If you wish, I will crush them between the two mountains)).

Glory be to Allah! The Prophet's soul was weary from what he had endured from the people of Makkah and At-Taif, and his feet were still bleeding... yet Allah, the Almighty, places His beloved in the position of a ruler with the authority to command, while all the disbelievers are as if they were chained, humiliated, and submissive. Two angels await a word from the Prophet's lips to end the suffering, soothe the chest, and remove the anger of the heart. Look how noble Muhammad (peace be upon him) is in the sight of his Lord, the Most Merciful! Is this not a great kindness from Allah to His beloved? When the Messenger of Allah sees his status with his Lord and his Lord's love for him and His anger on his behalf. So he (peace be upon him) said to the two angels - with the utmost human nobility and greatness -: ((But I hope that Allah will bring forth from their loins those who will worship Allah alone, associating nothing with Him)) (Agreed upon). By his father and mother, peace be upon him.

Is this not a great kindness from Allah to His Prophet?! That He hands him the reins of power and makes him the decision-maker... then the Prophet, of his own accord, chooses to be patient with them, not out of helplessness, but out of greatness and mercy. Instead of the Prophet feeling oppressed and helpless towards these stubborn ones, he becomes like a father who chooses to be patient with these disobedient children himself. When you are afflicted, contemplate how your affliction could have been worse, then contemplate the faces of Allah's kindness to you. In an affliction I went through, I made myself contemplate the faces of kindness. I took a piece of paper and a pen and wrote a list titled: (Things that eased the affliction). I reached 37 things that Allah eased this affliction with! Then I added many others afterward. And I advise every afflicted person to do the same and see its effect on himself.

Allah eases your burden with meeting a man who was afflicted before you and was patient, with a smile you see on your brother's face, with Allah's care for your children and those who are dear to you, with the love of noble people and their support for you, with a book you read, with a beautiful memory, with a hope for relief that arises in your heart, with a beautiful image of the future that is drawn in your mind, with Allah's expansion for you in another aspect of your life other than the one that has become narrow for you, with exposing you to a smaller affliction before the great affliction that trains you and prepares you for patience, with Allah revealing the ugliness of your oppressor... and much more.

And among the subtleties of divine kindness is that you are in an affliction that you are distressed by, then another affliction comes to you that makes your worry even greater... If Allah relieves this new worry, your chest will expand and your original affliction will seem trivial to you!

And among the subtleties of divine kindness are those good visions that I have seen from myself and many around me, whose beautiful taste and how much they have comforted the afflicted and calmed their hearts.

You may say to yourself... but there are afflictions in which we do not see kindness... Where is the kindness in what is happening to Muslims in different countries who are being tortured and their sanctities are being violated and they are being killed in horrific ways?!

The answer: But the greatest manifestations of kindness we see in their affliction! Which is their steadfastness in faith in moments of their torture and killing, instead of dying in disobedience. A person about to depart from this world and meet his Lord... Such a person does not need the affliction to be lightened, but rather multiplied so that his reward is multiplied, because he is about to stop working and the book of good and evil deeds is about to be closed. Most of our brothers are like us, who have mixed good deeds and bad deeds, and whose faith fluctuates between activity and lethargy... So what greater kindness is there than that Allah protects him from the evil of his evil deeds and casts faith into his heart that he utters the two testimonies and expressions of entrusting to Allah (We have no one but You, O Allah) while many others die in their homes and palaces with an evil death and do not succeed in uttering them?!

Abu Nu'aym narrated in Hilyat al-Awliya' that Umar bin Abdul Aziz said: (I do not like the pangs of death to be lightened for me because they are the last thing that expiates for the Muslim).

The conclusion of this station:

No matter how severe the affliction, you will see forms of Allah's kindness in it... Contemplate them, and your understanding of the Name of Allah (Al-Latif) will then deepen, so you rebuild your love for Him, the Most Merciful, on sound foundations.