this world over Allah’s displeasure. Thus he suffered injustice at the hands of someone who loved him to satisfy personal desires and corrupt purposes. This woman loved him out of passion, whose desired fulfilment would bring relief to her and to him, if he yielded to her. Those who hated him, meanwhile, hated him so intensely that they caused him to be cast into the well and then become a captive slave against his will. They took him from unrestricted freedom into wrongful enslavement without his choosing, whereas she drove him to choose confinement and imprisonment. The trial she caused him was therefore greater. His patience here was freely chosen and accompanied by mindfulness of Allah, unlike his patience under their injustice. That belonged to the afflictions which, if one does not endure them with the patience of the noble, one will eventually forget as animals do. The second kind of patience is the better of the two. Hence he said:

“Indeed, whoever is mindful of Allah and patient—Allah never lets the reward of those who do good go to waste.”

The same applies when a believer is harmed because of his faith and is called upon to commit disbelief, wickedness, or disobedience, facing harm and punishment if he refuses. He chooses harm and punishment over abandoning his religion, whether that means imprisonment or leaving his homeland. This is what happened to the Emigrants, who chose to leave their homelands rather than abandon their religion, while suffering torment and abuse.

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, suffered various forms of harm, which he endured with freely chosen patience, for the harm was inflicted on him only to prevent him from doing what he did