—and that is granted to no one but the believer: if prosperity comes to him he gives thanks, and that is better for him; and if adversity strikes him he is patient, and that too is better for him.”

Thus the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) made clear that every decree Allah passes concerning a believer who shows patience in affliction and gratitude in times of ease is, in the end, good for him. The Exalted says, “Surely in that are signs for every steadfast, grateful person,” and He repeats this verse in four places in His Book: in the sūrahs of Ibrāhīm, Luqmān, Sabaʾ, and al-Shūrā.

As for the one who neither endures trials with patience nor meets prosperity with thanks, nothing guarantees that the decree will be to his good.

For this reason I responded to the person who objected, asking how sins that befall the believer could possibly be good for him, with two answers.

1. This ḥadith concerns what befalls the servant, not what the servant himself commits. Allah says in al-Nisāʾ (4:79), “Whatever good befalls you is from Allah”—that is, prosperity—“and whatever evil befalls you is from your own self”—that is, adversity. Likewise He says in al-Aʿrāf (7:168), “We tested them with good and bad that they might return,” meaning ease and hardship, just as He says in al-Anbiyāʾ (21:35), “We test you with evil and good as a trial,” and in Āl ʿImrān (3:120), “If good touches you it grieves them, but if disaster befalls you they rejoice in it.” In these verses the words can denote benefit and harm, and they can also refer to acts of obedience and disobedience.

2. The guarantee applies to the patient, grateful believer; sins lessen faith, but when the servant repents Allah loves him, and his rank may even be raised because of that repentance. One of the early Muslims said, “David was better after his repentance than he was before his slip.” Thus, whoever is granted repentance is like the person Saʿīd ibn Jubayr described: “A man may perform a good deed and enter the Fire because of it, and a man may commit a sin and enter Paradise because of it,” for he may do a good deed, keep admiring it, and become conceited, whereas he may commit a sin, keep it before his eyes, seek Allah’s forgiveness, and repent from it.

It is authentically reported from the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) that he said, “Deeds are judged by their final outcome.”

When the believer commits a sin, its punishment can be lifted from him by ten means:

1. He repents, and Allah accepts his repentance, for “the penitent from sin is like one who never sinned.”
2. He seeks forgiveness, and Allah forgives him.
3. He performs good deeds that erase it, for “good deeds do away with misdeeds.”
4. His believing brothers supplicate for him and intercede on his behalf, both while he is alive and after his death.
5. They present him with a share of the reward of their deeds, from which Allah lets him benefit.
6. His Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and grant him peace) intercedes for him.
7. Allah afflicts him in this world with calamities that expiate for him.
8. He is tried in the barzakh and by the pangs of death, which expiate for him.
9. He is tried on the plains of the Resurrection with its terrors in a way that expiates for him.
10. Or the Most Merciful of the merciful simply shows him mercy.

Whoever escapes all ten has no one to blame but himself, as Allah says in the ḥadith qudsī related by His Messenger: “O My servants, it is but your deeds that I record for you and then repay you for; so whoever finds good, let him praise Allah, and whoever finds otherwise, let him blame no one but himself.”

Thus the believer knows that the Divine decree is good, provided he remains patient and grateful.