who grows weary and suffers greatly from his illness, whereupon Allah—Mighty and Majestic—heals him. This too is tangible ease. There is also inward ease: Allah’s assistance to a person in remaining patient. This is itself a form of ease, for when Allah helps you to remain patient, the difficult becomes easy for you. A hardship so severe that, were it to descend upon the mountains, it would crush them becomes easy through the patience Allah enables you to exercise.
Ease does not mean only that the hardship is entirely lifted. Ease may take the form of distress abating and disappearing, which is tangible ease; or it may take the form of Allah helping a person to remain patient until that severe and difficult matter becomes easy for him. We say this because we have complete confidence in Allah’s promise.
“So when you have finished, strive, and direct your longing to your Lord.” That is, when you finish one task, exert yourself in another. Do not allow your worldly life to go to waste. Thus, the life of a rational person is one of earnest endeavour: whenever he finishes one task, he begins another, and so forth. Time continues to pass, whether a person is awake or asleep, occupied or at leisure, and no one can hold it back. Even if all creation were to gather together to stop the sun so that the day might last longer, they could not do so. No one can hold back time.
Therefore, make your life one of earnest endeavour. When you finish one task, exert yourself in another. When you finish some worldly work, turn to work for the Hereafter; and when you finish work for the Hereafter, occupy yourself with some worldly matter. Thus, when the Friday prayer has concluded, disperse throughout the land and seek Allah’s bounty. Friday prayer is flanked by two worldly activities:
“O you who believe, when the call to prayer is made on Friday”—meaning, while you are occupied with your worldly affairs—“hasten to the remembrance of Allah and leave off trade. That is better for you, if only you knew. Then, when the prayer has concluded, disperse throughout the land and seek Allah’s bounty” [al-Jumuah: 9, 10].
Thus, whenever we finish one occupation, we take up another; and when we finish that, we take up yet another. This is how a person should always be: engaged in earnest endeavour.