“Woe to you! Would you not have endured eighty years of affliction, just as we enjoyed eighty years of ease? By Allah, if Allah heals me, I shall give you one hundred lashes. You commanded me to offer a sacrifice to other than Allah. The food and drink that you bring me are forbidden to me—or, forbidden for me—to taste after what you have said to me. So leave me, for I do not wish to see you.” (1)

He drove her away, and she departed. When Job saw that he had neither food nor drink nor friend, (2) he fell down in prostration and said, “My Lord, indeed adversity has touched me, and You are the Most Merciful of the merciful.”

It was said to him, “Raise your head, for your supplication has been answered. Strike the ground with your foot.” So he struck it with his foot, and a spring gushed forth. He washed from it, and every outward trace of his illness fell away; his youth and beauty returned to him in their finest state. Then he struck the ground again with his foot, and another spring gushed forth. He drank from it, and every illness within him departed. He rose up sound and well, clothed in a robe.

He began looking about and found that Allah had doubled everything he had possessed of family and wealth. Indeed, by Allah, it has been related to us that the water with which he washed scattered golden locusts upon his chest, and he began gathering them in his hands. Allah then revealed to him, “O Job, have I not made you free of need?” He replied, “Certainly; but this is Your blessing, and who could ever have enough of it?”

He then went out and sat in an elevated place. Meanwhile, his wife said, “What do you think? If he has driven me away, to whom has he left him? Shall I leave him to die of hunger and be lost, only for wild beasts to devour him? I shall surely return to him.” Yet she could see neither the rubbish heap nor the condition in which he had been, for everything had changed. She began walking around the place where the rubbish heap had been and weeping, while Job watched her. She was too awed by the man in the robe to approach him and ask about Job.

Job called to her and said, “What do you want, female servant of Allah?” She wept and said, “I am looking for that afflicted man who had been cast upon the rubbish heap. I do not know whether he has perished or what has become of him.”

Job asked, “What was he to you?” She wept and said, “He was my husband.” He said, “Would you recognize him if you saw him?” She replied, “Could anyone who had seen him fail to recognize him?” Then she began to look at him, though she was in awe of him, and said, “Indeed, when he was well, he was the person in all Allah’s creation who most resembled you.”

He said, “I am Job—the one whom you commanded to slaughter a sacrifice for Iblis. I obeyed Allah, disobeyed Satan, and called upon Allah, glorified is He; and He has restored to me what you see.” (3)

Wahb said: “Job remained under affliction for three years. When Job overcame Iblis and he could achieve nothing against him, Iblis intercepted his wife in a form unlike that of the children of Adam in size, stature, and beauty, riding a mount unlike the mounts of men, possessed of grandeur, splendor, and perfection. He said to her, ‘Are you the wife of Job, this afflicted man?’ She said, ‘Yes.’

“He asked, ‘Do you recognize me?’ She said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I am the god of the earth. I did to your husband what I did because he worshipped the Lord of heaven and forsook me, thereby angering me. If he would prostrate to me only once, I would restore to him and to you all the wealth and children you once had, for they are with me.’ Then he showed them to her in the valley where he had met her.” Wahb said, “And I have heard—” (4)