“Peace be upon you for what you patiently endured. And excellent is the final home.”
Much happens in life that is sad and unfair. Both personal and public tragedies are an integral part of life. Nevertheless, we know that all that happens in a lifetime is but an episode of a to-be-continued story. That how we react to destiny is a matter of choice.
When a baby with a severe chromosomal abnormality is the first-born to a religious young couple, when a cruel disease sidesteps the comatose elderly patient and seizes the young mother, when the bliss of a family is twisted into misery by what seems to have been a needless, careless act, when natural disaster or monstrous deeds reap lives in incomprehensible numbers, it may shock and shake us – but it should not leave us bewildered –for such is the stuff of life.
And so it is that I think of Sayyidah Khadeejah – one of the dignitaries of Heaven. How she started a new family at an age when most women are looking toward acquiring results and relief. How she lost both her sons – Prophet Muhammad’s (SAW) sons – as toddlers. I think of all the support she was famous for, all she offered: her wealth, her words, her very self, yet she never witnessed the victory of Islam; dying shortly after the three years of boycott.
I think of her climbing to the cave of Hira in her fifties, carrying provisions to her husband (SAW), who had outstayed the food he had taken. Climbing at her age, with concern and peace, not bitter that she was left alone with the children for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Preferring to go in person despite her being a wealthy woman with servants. And I think of Angel Jibreel, his form filling the horizon, entrusting the Prophet (SAW) with a message to her, “Relay to Khadeejah the salutation of peace from her Lord.” To which she answered, “Allah is peace and from Him comes peace and upon Jibreel be peace.” And in another narration he said, “Give Khadeejah good tidings of a house of pearl wherein there is no weariness or clamor,” meaning that her life was exhausting and clamorous, but because we understand this to be an episode, we are not surprised that she suffered hardship.
It is the peace with which she governed her household that draws us to examine her closer. The encouraging, comforting words she spoke when the Messenger (SAW) came to her agitated; the peace with which she reacted to his distancing himself from the family; the unfailing support she offered; the peace with which she patiently endured the physical and psychological hardship of the years of boycott. It is that peace that intrigues us especially knowing all she endured.
Patience by definition is to hold yourself back from panic and resentment, your tongue from complaint and your body from reacting adversely to trials. There are other categories of patience, like that needed to compel one to obey Allah, and that to not disobey His orders. I speak today only of the sabr (patience) needed to bear trial and hardship. Feeling pain and complaining to your Lord do not defy patience. But, there are times, when having suffered much, our faces reflect hostility and anguish. We have chosen to focus on the pain, the difficulty, the lack, the offender. In time that may result in bitterness and a wish to retaliate. And then there is the type of patience that the mother of the believers, Khadeejah, models. A patience that seeks the ease embedded in every trial and the newly acquired intensity of dua and prayer. A patience that chooses to rise above the who and why, focusing on one’s relationship with Allah.
Realizing that difficulties, hardship and pain are a natural part of life, realizing that we are required to patiently bear what we cannot change and destiny imposes, realizing that there is great reward in acceptance and forbearance, realizing that all the loose ends and unfinished business will be taken care of on the Day of Judgment fills the heart that is attached to its Creator with peace. A peace that allows one to see the ease and blessings intertwined in every difficulty. A peace that finds solace in the turning and complaining to one’s Lord. A peace that causes us to reiterate Umar bin al Khattab’s words, at any calamity, ‘alhamdulilah that it wasn’t worse, alhamdulilah that it didn’t befall my faith and alhamdulilah that I am rewarded for it.’
And so it is that the welcome and salutation of those in Heaven is, “Peace be upon you for what you patiently endured. And excellent is the final home.”
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