that may manifest on the tongue and the other limbs. This touches the very core of creed, for belief in divine decree is one of the six pillars of faith, and its fruit is patience when calamities strike. Whoever fails to show patience at such times is signaling that this pillar is either absent or weak within him; accordingly, he will meet adversity with panic and resentment. The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—declared that such behavior amounts to an aspect of disbelief that compromises Islamic belief itself.
In Sahih Muslim it is narrated from Abu Hurayrah that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Two practices among people are acts of disbelief: disparaging lineage and wailing over the dead.” 567 These two traits are classified as forms of kufr because they belong to the practices of pre-Islamic ignorance. The hadith differentiates between al-kufr, the definite form—as in his statement, “Between a servant and kufr or shirk stands only the abandonment of prayer” 568 —and kufr in the indefinite form, as occurs in this report.
In the two Sahihs it is also recorded: “He is not one of us who strikes the cheeks, tears the garments, and calls with the cries of Jahiliyyah.” 569
Regarding the phrase “and calls with the cries of Jahiliyyah,” Ibn al-Qayyim explains: “Calling with the cries of Jahiliyyah includes rallying people around tribes and clan partisanship, or similar fanaticism for legal schools, factions, or shaykhs—preferring some over others, urging loyalty on that basis, and showing enmity for it. All of this falls under the cries of Jahiliyyah.” 570
Allah, exalted be He, ordains calamities for His servants for profound reasons, among them that He wipes away their sins thereby. Anas reports that the Prophet ﷺ said, “When Allah intends good for a servant, He hastens his punishment in this world; and when He intends evil for him, He withholds because of his sin until he meets Him with it on the Day of Resurrection.” 571 Al-Tirmidhi related it, and al-Hakim judged it sound.
Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH) said, “Calamities are a blessing: they are expiations….”