We sit for tests of all sorts throughout our lives, tests in varying scopes and levels of difficulty. Tests to enroll a school, to pass a class, to graduate, the test a son happens to endure with his father or the other way around, and many more tests. An exceptionally difficult and humiliating test is being disqualified, pushed aside, and stripped of civil rights due to one’s humanistic thoughts and lofty ideals.

The most unbearable test, however, is the one that comes with the hands of disloyal friends, particularly when one is already suffering from the words and actions of relentless and merciless foes. Although, regardless of however inhumane and short of dignity a foe may be, his or her enmity can still be reconciled by an antagonistic logic. One may rationalize—using the same logic—that the more differences in thought, worldview, and values increase, so does enmity. Nevertheless, it is unreasonable and irrational when those striving on the same line of fate, those who cherish the same feelings and ideas, betray one another because of jealousy and competition. This is no way reconcilable with human dignity.

Indeed, it hurts—as much as it is worrying—when one ends up with betrayal and pain while expecting faithfulness. What else one can do other than enduring it, as tests of this nature are rampant in a world in which deceit is considered equal to being smart, obsession is equal to to loyalty, and bigotry means conservatism. Yes, as individuals, families, and community as a whole, we have no other option than to endure and say:

A reprimand from Your Majesty
or a favor from Your Grace;
Both are a pleasure for my soul;
How pleasant is Your grace
How pleasant is Your wrath

A community or a nation may have suffered from the greatest and most painful of all tribulations and betrayals from foes, some of who were in the disguise of friends. The entire world might have advanced upon them and brought them under siege from all corners, leading some to a vain belief of their complete annihilation. Yet, they were able to survive all these tests of life-or-death, nullifying all the destructive plans. It is highly probable for similar tests to come up along the way through hills of flames and oceans of blood, all of which will in fact help them with renewal and with metaphysical regeneration. Each of these tests will be a means of awareness for them to identify who is who, for self-empowerment through learning how to recollect and get back on their feet after being knocked down by them. A human being is purified through tests and gets hold of his or her inner essence, thus their life is saved from stagnancy and becomes colorful. Our spirit matures in the face of tests and becomes prepared for bigger challenges, as the bigger the tests and harder the questions are, the more entitled the human is to pass the class and to rise higher in the school of human values and perfection.

Refinement of the individual and empowerment of the society cannot take place without tests. Only souls who have been burdened and pressured by tests can coil like a spring, thrust like an arrow, and reach their target with the blink of an eye. Worries that haunt them all day, hunger and thirst, harm and damage, troubles of all kinds that befell their properties or lives, and being trodden under the metal tracks of unexpected events will all make them as strong as steel and prepare them for the future.

Deadened hearts and raw spirits that have not been tested whatsoever cannot rise to their human potential, nor are they of any use to the community. Distinguishing the diamond-like souls from coal-like ones is only possible by way of testing, at the lack of which gold cannot be distinguished from soil, or diamond from coal. If it was not for testing, the most inauspicious ones would be confused with the highest soaring souls, for it is through testing that angel-like ones can be told apart from the evil souls and ascend to their predestined zeniths.

For those who are appreciative of this truth, each test is one added feather to a wing that will enable him or her to take off to the realms beyond the heavens, and each difficulty faced during a test is an elixir of strength and vigor. For these lofty spirits, being cast into fire is the greatest leap into a friendship with the Creator, and being nailed on the cross is an exalted means of ascension to Him.

For a heart directed towards the highest of ideals, a test is a whip lashed on his or her perseverance, a spell that makes their willpower rear up, and a ray of light that shines on the dial of heart. After each test they crystallize even more, tighten like a bow, and soar high up to the Gardens they already built in their hearts.

Let not the muffled hearts with no refinement to welcome both His reprimand and favor fathom even a grain of this phenomenon; the idealist souls that have devoted themselves to this truth will never recognize anything more pleasant than the pains suffered in this cause. They will never lament and complain to others, even though they burn like a furnace inside. Unfaithfulness of friends and ruthlessness of foes will never take them aback from serving people and their country, for they have given oath as in the words of the poet:

Let the world come at me with all possible reasons for trouble
I am a traitor if I give up any conviction in the service of my nation. (Namık Kemal)

To find a way out

Toward that which it seeks and longs for

Travels with the hope of recovering what is lost

Travels from the reason to the heart

To bereft of power

To distinguish the hopeful

from among the hopeless causes

There’s a cold war between realities and imaginings

Dawn comes in dreams

When everything turns pale in the dead hours of the night

Dawn comes in dreams

Dreams are always vivid

Full of color

There when a man looks deep

Into unfathomed oceans

Beholds the past

The far future and what is near to come

What is old about to be replaced or renewed?

Dawn comes in dreams

When realities are too dark to endure

Dawn comes in dreams

In darkness a man suffers

The extreme of loneliness

When mouths are tight-lipped

As if zip-fastened

He wishes to sprout wings and fly

To the realms beyond and fly

Dawn comes in dreams

When events begin to drive me to give up hope

Dawn comes in dreams

The Qur’an orders patience in many verses, such as: Seek help in patience and prayer (2:45) and: Endure, vie with each other in endurance (3:199), and prohibits haste in verses like: Show not haste concerning them (the unbelievers) (46:35) and: When you meet in battle those who do not believe, turn not your backs to them (8:15). In many Qur’anic verses, God praises the patient, declares that He loves them, or mentions the ranks He has bestowed on them: The patient and steadfast, and the truthful and loyal (3:16); God loves the patient (3:145); and Surely God is with the patient (2:153).

The Qur’an mentions many other aspects of patience. For example: If you endure patiently, this is indeed better for those who are patient (16:126) advises patience as a preferable way in dealing with unbelievers while communicating God’s Message to them. We will certainly bestow on those who are patient their reward according to the best of what they used to do (16:96) consoles the patient with the best of rewards to be given in the Hereafter. If you have patience and guard yourselves against evil and disobedience, God will send to your aid five thousand angels having distinguishing marks, if they [your enemies] suddenly attack you (3:124) promises the believers Divine aid in return for patience.

How meaningful is the following saying of the Prophet Muhammad, master of humanity, peace be upon him, concerning patience and thankfulness:

How remarkable a believer’s affair is, for it is always to his advantage, and such a condition is only for a believer. If something good happens to him he thanks God, which is to his advantage; if something bad happens to him he endures it, which is also to his advantage.

The characteristics of patience can be grouped into five categories: enduring difficulties associated with being a true servant of God or steadfastness in performing regular acts of worship; resisting temptations of the carnal self and Satan to commit sins; enduring heavenly or earthly calamities, which includes resignation to Divine decrees; being steadfast in following the right path and not allowing worldly attractions to cause deviation; and showing no haste in realizing hopes or plans that require a certain length of time to achieve.

With respect to its degrees, patience can be divided into six categories: showing patience for the sake of God; showing patience and attributing it to God (being convinced that God enables one to show patience); enduring patiently whatever comes from God, knowing that He acts from His Wisdom; being resigned to whatever happens in the way of God; showing patience by not disclosing the mysteries of one’s achieved spiritual station and to preserve one’s nearness to God; and resolving to fulfill one’s mission of communicating God’s Message to people despite one’s deepest desire to die and meet with God.

There are other definitions of patience as well. For example, preserving one’s manners in the face of misfortune; being steadfast when confronted with events, and showing no sign of being deterred; never giving in to one’s carnal desires and the impulses of one’s temperament; accepting the commandments of the Qur’an and the Sunna as a sort of invitation to Paradise; and sacrificing all possessions, including one’s soul and beloved ones, for the sake of the True, Beloved One.

Those Qur’anic interpreters who were interested in the text’s secret or esoteric meanings have made the following commentaries on the verse: Endure, vie with each other in endurance, and continue your relation with God (3:199):

Be steadfast in performing your religious duties, endure whatever displeasing thing happens to you, and maintain your love of God and desire to meet with Him. Or, be steadfast in fulfilling all your responsibilities for the sake of God and to please Him, and endure the difficulty of always being aware of His constant supervision of you and feeling His omnipresence. Or, be steadfast in following the Straight Path without any deviation, even when Divine bounties pour out onto you. Resolve to endure all difficulties and hardships, and maintain your connection or adherence to God whatever happens to you.

Another approach to patience is to attribute to God Almighty whatever is in the universe and happens therein and, while giving thanks for what appears pleasing, being resigned to what appears displeasing. When a believer unburdens himself or herself to God while trying to overcome a misfortune or hardship, a responsibility that is very hard to fulfill, or sins that might be committed, this must not be considered a complaint against God. Rather, it is a believer’s way of asking Him for help and seeking refuge in Him. In no way can such an action be considered a complaint or a protest against God or Divine Destiny. In reality, and according to one’s intention, such an act may even be regarded as a supplication and an entreaty, as putting one’s trust in Him or as submitting to Him.

The cry of Prophet Job, upon him be peace, to God: Truly distress (disease, tribulation) has seized me. But You are the Most Compassionate of the Compassionate (21:83) and the groaning of Prophet Jacob, upon him be peace: I only complain of my anguish and my sorrow unto God (12:86) are supplications or entreaties for God’s pity and compassion. God Almighty praised Job, upon him be peace, for being an excellent servant distinguished with patience and supplications: We found him patient; how excellent a servant! Truly he was ever turning (to God) with supplications (38:44).

One of the most distinguishing characteristics of Prophets and saints is their embodiment of patience in all of its manifold forms and degrees, and that without deviating from their utmost devotion to God, they do their best to communicate God’s Message to people and bear all misfortune and difficulty arising there from. The Prophet Muhammad, glory of humanity, upon him be peace and blessings, who is a mercy for the whole of creation, declared: Among mankind, those who are stricken with the most terrible of misfortunes are the Prophets, and then follow others according to their degree of faith.

Patience is an essential characteristic of those believers who are the most advanced in belief, spirituality, nearness to God, and who guide others to the truth. It is, moreover, the source of power for those advancing toward this final point. Since the most advanced people experience the most misfortune, they are perfect embodiments of patience, which is the price they pay for the rank bestowed on them. Others who have been destined to advance to that final point cross the distances traveled by others through different and frequent acts of worship, by enduring whatever happens to them. Of these, God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, says:

If God Almighty has destined a servant of His to a rank or position which he cannot reach through his religious actions, He causes him to suffer from his own self and family, and equips him with patience to endure all his sufferings. He elevates him through patience to the rank to which he has destined him.

Thus the suffering to be endured, the difficulty in fulfilling one’s responsibilities, and the pressure of sin contain potential mercy, mercy that is attracted by one’s patience. One subjected to such affliction should not unburden himself or herself to anybody else. How beautifully Fuduli says:

You say you are a lover, then do not complain of the affliction of love;
By complaining, do not make others informed of your affliction.

Travelers on the path to God should know how to burn and boil with love or be consumed with affliction, but never complain to others of such love and affliction. Even if crushed by difficulty or responsibility as heavy as mountains, they should not complain to others.

Rumi summarizes such a degree of patience as follows:

In order to be sustenance for man, a source of strength for his knees, a “light” for his eyes, and a substance for the maintenance of his life, a grain of wheat must be buried in the bosom of the earth, germinate under it, and grow to emerge into the air. It must come into the air after a fierce struggle with the earth, and then be sown and threshed, and ground in a mill. After that, it must be kneaded, baked in an oven, and, finally, chewed by teeth, sent into the stomach, and digested.

To attain true humanity, each individual must be “sieved” or “distilled” many times to discover his or her true essence. Otherwise, the ability to develop one’s potential to its fullest, to be truly human, is not possible:

It is expected of God’s servant to suffer,
And of an aloe wood to burn.

Patience is an essential and most important dimension of servanthood to God, and is crowned with resignation, the highest spiritual rank in the sight of God, to whatever God has destined.

we wait. The sun steady

in its track. Vicissitudes

of light, shadows thinning,

growing long. We endure

and wait. Salvation in

the hour before the hour

before dusk. The seedlings

come twirling down,

skittering along the street.

The shadows quiver like

benevolent ghosts. The trees

cackle their sussurant laugh.

And we, impatient, sentient

beings, wish time to be inert.