—the hardship here lies outside the customary domain.
Conversely, if none of those consequences is normally present, it is not regarded as hardship in common usage—even though one may call it a “burden,” for every human situation in this worldly realm involves some degree of burden.
Once this is understood, it follows that when the Lawgiver prescribes a duty that is ordinarily strenuous, His purpose is not to distress His servants but to secure the benefits that return to them. And if hardship is not His aim in routine obligations, it is even less conceivable that He should intend it in matters outside that routine.
Issue Four: The wisdom behind lifting hardship from religious obligations
Hardship is removed from the legally responsible person for two reasons:
- Fear that he might abandon the path and grow to dislike worship.
- Fear of falling short when the various responsibilities that rest upon him—such as caring for his family and other duties—compete for his attention.
Regarding the first, Allah thereby safeguards people’s hearts and endears those obligations to them; for if they had to perform them without ease, impurities would creep into their acts of worship, robbing those acts of their sincerity.
As for the second, the legally responsible servant is charged with a range of indispensable religious tasks. If he immerses himself in one arduous practice, it may keep him from fulfilling the others—especially the rights of others that depend on him—so he will be blameworthy and without excuse. The intent is that he discharge all duties in a way that compromises none of them. This applies even when the strenuous practice is itself permissible; if it is impermissible to begin with, the prohibition is all the more evident.
Issue Five: Opposing one’s own desires is painful for the soul, and freeing it from them is difficult. The condition of the idolaters and the People of the Book—who insisted on remaining as they were, content to see their lives and circumstances ruined rather than relinquish their passions—stands as clear evidence.
The Lawgiver instituted the Sharia precisely to draw the legally responsible person away from following his caprice so that he might become