and glorify your Lord with praise when you rise.”

Allah Most High also says in Sūrat Nūn:

“Or do you ask them for payment, so that they are burdened with debt? Or do they possess knowledge of the unseen, which they are writing down? So be patient with your Lord’s judgment, and do not be like the companion of the whale, who called out in anguish.”

Its meaning has been explained as: “Be patient with whatever is decreed for you.” Another explanation is: “Bear their harm patiently in anticipation of your Lord’s judgment, which is coming.” The first is more correct.

Allah’s judgment is of two kinds: creation and command. The first concerns the calamities He decrees; the second concerns what He commands and forbids. The servant is commanded to exercise patience with both. He must patiently observe what he is commanded and what he is forbidden, carrying out the commands and refraining from what is prohibited. He must also bear patiently whatever Allah has decreed for him.

Some Quran commentators say: “This verse is abrogated by the verse of the sword.” This would be a tenable interpretation if the verse contained a prohibition on fighting: that prohibition would then be abrogated, not every form of patience. How could all forms of patience be abrogated, when the verse here neither prohibits nor prescribes fighting? Rather, patience with Allah’s judgment is obligatory and has always remained so. When he is commanded to engage in jihad, he must “also” be patient with Allah’s judgment, for fighting them brings ordeals more severe than their verbal abuse, as he experienced on the days of Uhud and the Trench. At such times, he must be patient and carry out the jihad he has been commanded to undertake.