Patience A Psychological Sacrifice

Patience A Psychological Sacrifice

195:31

1994 10 October 3-4 Patience A Psychological Sacrifice (348)

The majority of the Jews and Christians who were contemporaries of the Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him) rejected him outright. But there were some who did believe in him. Of them, the Qur’an has this to say: ‘Those to whom We sent the Book before this believe in it. And when it is recited to them, they say: “We believe in it, for it is the truth from our Lord. We surrendered ourselves to Him long before it came.” Twice will they be given their reward, because they have endured with fortitude.’ (28:52-54)

According to the Qur’an, they were to be doubly rewarded, firstly, for believing in their own Book and, secondly, for believing in the Qur’an.

The level of faith shown by the People of the Book, (an important example of which was demonstrated by Abdullah ibn Salam, a Christian scholar who converted to Islam) can never be attained without patience and the sacrifice this involves. The Prophetic religion having become submerged in communal traditions they had to rise above the dictates of their community in order to prove that they were still the upholders of that religion. And that required patience. Again patience was required of them in their adoption of a new and strange religion – in fact the religion of another community – which bade them ignore all other interests and show disregard for expediency. It was due to this two-sided effort that they deserved a double reward.

The true faith can be received only when one is willing to rise himself above circumstances and risk the surveying of relations with one’s community and the withdrawal of the community leaders’ support. One who earnestly seeks to adopt the true faith must go deeper than appearances in order to attain reality; in short, he must ignore his own interests and instead adopt Islamic principles as his guide.

This is an extremely hard test. But the status of a true believer cannot be attained without making an extraordinary psychological sacrifice. Without this, one can neither find the truth, nor can one achieve great progress in faith.