Man and God

The Reward for Patience their foolishness, people often cling to such baseless thoughts and imaginary beliefs. To consider oneself to be like God is to imagine that one is the master of one’s destiny, and that one is completely free to do whatever he wants or to abstain from whatever he wants to. It is to imagine that one is free to devise the principles of one’s life as one wishes and to determine what is permissible and what is forbidden through one’s own reasoning. Every such effort is, as it were, tantamount to putting oneself in God’s place, arrogating to oneself a right that is actually God’s alone. Every such supposition is completely false, because a human being, in reality, is a helpless creature, and he can in no sense acquire the status of the Creator. The Reward for Patience P atience is greatly stressed in the Quran. The Quran tells us that if someone commits excesses against you and you could not exercise patience, you can respond to him in an equal way. But this is only by way of concession. Otherwise, the higher level of responding is to forgive him, and, instead of exacting revenge, to adopt the approach of reform. If you respond in this way you will get your reward from God, and no harm will befall you. Thus, the Quran says: “Let harm be requited by an equal harm. But whoever pardons and amends will find his reward with God. He does not love the wrongdoers.” (42:40) In life, one is repeatedly faced with difficulties at the hands of others. Someone promises you something but does