Abu Malik al-Ash'ari

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Sabr (patience and steadfast endurance)

Holding the soul to God's obedience, away from disobedience, and through His painful decrees; in the commentary on Ibn Abbas's counsel Ibn Rajab records that contentment is a recommended excellence while patience is binding upon the believer, God having commanded it and promised a vast reward, that in patience over what one dislikes lies much good since the affliction written upon the servant, borne patiently, yields much good — Amr mawla Ghafra's route adding 'if you can work for God with contentment in certainty then do, and if not, then in patience over what you dislike lies much good'; the servant needs God's aid for performing the commands, abandoning the forbidden and bearing all decreed things in the world, at death and through the terrors of the barzakh and resurrection — none can aid that but God, and whoever truly seeks His aid is aided, as in 'strive for what benefits you, seek God's help and do not flag'; 'victory is with patience' covers both jihads, the outward enemy and the inward — the patient triumphs and the fretter is captured or slain — and Ibn al-Mubarak's saying 'whoever is patient, how little he needs to endure, and whoever frets, how little he enjoys', followed by 'relief is with affliction' and 'with hardship is ease'.

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Sabr (patience and steadfast endurance)