Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad, known as Ibn Rushayq al-Maghribī (d. 749 AH), writes: “A Principle on Patience and Gratitude, about sixty folios.”⦗1⦘
3. Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī likewise states in al-ʿUqūd al-Durriyyah (p. 39) that among Ibn Taymiyyah’s works is “A Principle on Patience and Gratitude.”
C. Subject of the Treatise
The author, may Allah have mercy on him, opens by asserting that the entire religion, taken as a whole, returns to two matters: patience and gratitude. He substantiates this with the Almighty’s words, “Indeed in that are signs for every steadfast, grateful person” (Q 34:19), and with the Prophet’s saying: “Amazing indeed is the affair of the believer! All of it is good for him. Whenever Allah decrees something for a believer, it is good for him: if ease befalls him, he is grateful and that is good for him; and if hardship strikes him, he is patient and that is good for him.”
He then clarifies that patience, in general, falls into three categories:
First: patience in carrying out acts of obedience until they are performed.
Second: patience in abstaining from what is forbidden so that it is not committed.
Third: patience over afflictions that befall a person without his choice.
He further explains that afflictions themselves are of two kinds:
- Those in which people have no role—such as illnesses and other heavenly calamities. This type is easier to bear, for the servant perceives in it Allah’s decree and predestination and recognises that no human hand is involved; thus he endures it, whether by necessity or by willing choice.
- Those that reach a servant through the actions of others, affecting his wealth, honour, or person. This type is exceedingly hard to bear, for the soul instinctively recoils from whoever harms it