for him.” (1)
He is tranquil and content with Allah’s decree and predestination. He does not become resentful when calamities strike or exult arrogantly when blessings come. Rather, he is grateful for blessings and patient through trials, and so you find him at peace.
By contrast, a disbeliever or a person of weak faith has no peace. When adversity befalls him, he panics and becomes resentful, imagining that Allah has wronged him—Allah forbid. Some of them even take their own lives; they neither remain patient nor find peace, but live in constant anxiety. Such a person looks at himself and sees that he has little wealth and a small family, no wife, and no people to protect him. He says, “I enjoy no blessings. So-and-so has wealth, wives, children, and a tribe to protect him, while I have none of that.” Thus, he recognizes none of Allah’s blessings upon him. Because his faith is weak, he has no peace and remains perpetually anxious.
This is why we now see people going everywhere to entertain themselves and dispel their pain and weariness. Yet nothing truly dispels these except faith. True faith is what brings tranquility. The tranquil soul, therefore, is the believing soul: believing in this world and safe from Allah’s punishment on the Day of Resurrection.
One of the early Muslims made a remarkable statement: “If kings and the sons of kings knew the bliss we enjoy, they would fight us for it with swords.” Can you find anyone in this world who lives more luxuriously than kings and their sons? Outwardly, no one enjoys greater luxury—that is, bodily comfort. Yet their hearts are not like the hearts of believers. A believer may possess nothing but a patched garment and a hut that protects him from neither rain nor heat; yet because he is a believer, his worldly life and enjoyment are better than those of kings and their sons. His heart is illuminated by Allah’s light—the light of faith.
Consider Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya—may Allah have mercy on him. He was imprisoned and persecuted for Allah’s sake—glorified and exalted is He. When he was placed in prison and they shut the door upon him, he—may Allah have mercy on him—said:
﴿Then a wall with a gate will be raised between them: within it will be mercy, while outside it will be punishment.﴾ [al-Hadīd: 13].
He said this as an expression