The Reward of the Patient Ones

Our reading comprehension book features stories from the lives of the Prophets and Imams. More often than not, the stories featured give us food for thought, as well as increasing our Arabic vocabulary. Yesterday's story was about people who are patient.

It is narrated from the 4th Holy Imam who said that on the Day of Judgement, Allah will gather a group of the early people and the later people and call out for the patient people to enter into Heaven without having their deeds accounted for! So a group of people will stand up, only to be stopped by the angels. The angels will ask: "where are you going?" So the patient ones will reply: "To Heaven". The Angels will ask "Without being accounted for!?" The patient ones will say "Yes". The Angels will then ask "So who are you?" The patient ones will reply "We are the patient ones". And the Angels will continue to ask "And what was your patience?" The people will reply "We were patient in obeying Allah, we were patient against disobeying Allah and we were patient in the trials and tribulations of life".

Then Allah will tell the Angels "They speak the truth, enter them into Heaven. Only the patient will be paid back their reward in full without measure." (Qur'an, Chapter 39, verse 10)

This story really got me thinking. Living in the West, we are so accustomed to having everything here and now. If our blackberrys, laptops, ipods break down, if our email stops working, if our cars get a puncture, if the hot water heater breaks down... we are so 'put out' and 'inconvenienced' and 'feel we are experiencing trials and tribulations'. One of the things you realise when you move to the 3rd world is how unimportant these things really are. They are nice to have and keep, but really our lives don't depend on them.

And entering into Muharram and hearing the narrations of the events that transpired over a century ago in the hot sands of Karbala, you realise that those people lost everything - their family, their possessions, their hijabs all in a matter of a day. And yet when they were asked about their experiences, they replied by saying "I didn't see anything but beauty". This is really inspirational.

Even when I recite the ziarat of Sayyidda Zainab, at the end there is a line near the end which says: "Assalamu Alyki ayatuhas Saahibatul Museebatul Udhmaa" which means "peace be on you O the one who is the bearer of the greatest tragedy" and whenever I recite this line it puts everything into perspective. No matter what I experience in life, it will be nowhere nearly as tragic as what this lady went through in Karbala and after. It makes me that that I have no right to complain about the small things that go wrong in my life. Just deal with what life throws at you and move on. That's my new motto for life.