The whole affair belongs to Allah. If Allah Most High takes back what belongs to Him, how can you reproach your Lord? How can you be resentful?
If it is asked, “Which type of patience is hardest for people to bear?”
The answer is that this varies. Some people find it difficult to obey Allah, and obedience weighs very heavily upon them. For others, the opposite is true: obedience is easy, but refraining from sin is extremely difficult and arduous. Others find it easy to remain patient in obedience and to refrain from sin, but cannot endure calamities. They become overwhelmed, and matters may even reach the point that they renounce their faith—we seek refuge in Allah—as Allah Most High says:
“There are some people who worship Allah on the very edge: if good comes to them, they are reassured by it; but if a trial befalls them, they turn back, losing this world and the Hereafter. That is the manifest loss” [al-Hajj: 11].
Thus, we learn from this surah that Allah—Mighty and Majestic—affirmed with an oath, further reinforced by the particle inna and the emphatic lām, that all the children of Adam are in a state of loss. Loss surrounds them on every side, except those who possess these four qualities: faith, righteous deeds, urging one another to uphold the truth, and urging one another to remain patient.
Imam al-Shāfiʿī—may Allah have mercy on him—said, “Had Allah sent down no proof to His servants other than this surah, it would have sufficed them.” That is, it would have sufficed as an admonition and an exhortation to hold fast to faith and righteous deeds, to call people to Allah, and to remain patient in doing so. He did not mean that this surah contains everything people need regarding the whole of the Sacred Law; rather, it suffices them as an admonition. Every rational person knows that he is in a state of loss unless he possesses these four qualities. He will therefore strive, to the best of his ability, to acquire them and thereby save himself from loss. We ask Allah to make us among those who prosper and are granted success. He is powerful over all things.