Radio Islam Newsletter

Enduring Grief and Hardship

I am sure that each and every one of us has, at some point in his or her life, been visited by grief, tragedy, or tremendous loss, emotionally or materially. It may have been a serious illness or accident or death of a loved one, or we may have failed an important examination, or we may have seen a business or professional career which has grown and prospered over many years, finally come to disaster.

To those who have suffered such a loss, their feelings are hard to describe adequately. There is a sense of utter despair, emptiness, and a numbing of the senses. It can become so intense that one actually questions the whole purpose and meaning of life. In today's time we have many organisations and charities that offer professional help like bereavement counselling or advice on dealing with financial hardship. However, many people are unable to come to terms with sudden catastrophic loss, and therefore, we often hear of someone being so overcome with grief that they have taken leave of their senses, they suffer prolonged and repeated bouts of deep depression, a complete change of personality. In extreme cases, some victims of hardship lose all inclination for life at all and they commit suicide.

How should we Muslims deal with intense personal suffering and grief? How should we comfort a friend or relative who is in distress?

Allah subhanallahu ta'ala reminds us: "Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger; some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil) but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere. Who say when afflicted with calamity:

"Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhir raji-oon"

"To Allah we belong and to Him is our return."

They are those on whom (descend) blessings from Allah and Mercy and they are the ones that receive guidance." (Al-Baqara, V. 155-157)

From these verses we can see that in a Muslim's life, hardship and suffering should never come as a complete surprise. In fact, Allah promises us some hardship as a certainty, somewhere during our lifetime. It is a test of our imaan, our faith in Allah, and we should not despair, because there are lessons to be learnt from every situation, especially from misfortune.

I am reminded of a Turkish proverb which says that the best teacher is a bad experience. A true believer should know that during his lifetime, he must expect to be visited by success and failure, pleasure and pain, loss and gain. This is the inseparable duality of life. We cannot value anything without knowing its opposite. We must accept life as it comes, in the best of times and the worst of times, with equal grace and forbearance.

In Imaan e Mufassal (A Kalimah that entails the conditions of Imaan), we say:

Let us consider Nabi Ayyub Alaihis Salaam's example... "And (remember) Ayyub when he cried to his Rabb "Truly distress has seized me but You are the Most Merciful of those that are merciful." So We listened to him: We removed the distress that was on him and we restored his people to him and doubled their number as a Grace from Ourselves and a thing for commemoration for all who serve Us" (Al- Ambiyya, V. 83 and 84)

Nabi Ayyub was a prosperous man, with faith in Allah, and he suffered many hardships. His cattle were destroyed, his servants killed by the sword, and his family crushed under his roof. But he held fast to his faith in Allah. As a further calamity he was covered with sores from head to foot, and his friends abandoned him. But throughout this ordeal, his faith, his Iman remained rock-solid, unswerving, undiminished.

Because of this, Almighty Allah was pleased with him, so he was restored to full health. Not only was his prosperity redoubled, but his family and friends returned to him, and Allah gave him 7 sons and 3 daughters. He lived to a good old age, and saw four generations of his descendants before he passed away.

This inspiring story of Ayyub Alaihis Salaam is a wonderful example to us all. When we encounter sudden hardship, we should not feel sorry for ourselves, because self-pity leads us nowhere. We should place our complete trust in Allah Ta'aala, and have the certainty in heart and mind, that at the end of our pain and suffering, Allah's love and mercy will embrace us.

To a Believer, good fortune and misfortune are merely two sides of the same coin of life. Although we do not welcome hardship, we know that even in the noonday of life, we live in the shadow of death; in the peak of our prosperity, we are just a few short paces away from poverty and in the prime of our good health, illness lurks in the shadows nearby.

"Remember Allah in times of ease, and He will recognise you in times of distress. What hit you could not have missed you, what missed you could not have hit you. Remember that victory comes with patience, relief comes with affliction and ease comes with hardship."