Grief and the Adab of Tears

A question naturally arises: how, in the actual sense, is ṣabr shown, if something really bad happens? The proper words may already have been said — innā lillāhi wa innā ilayhi rājiʿūn, that is it, it has been said — and yet the tears cannot be controlled: there is crying, there is being upset. Is crying, then, allowed? What is the adab in this regard, when Allah (swt) has taken away a mother, a father, a wife, a child, a child, one's beautiful child, the very apple of one's eye? What is a person to do? The expected answer is: do not cry, for a Muslim does not cry. No — that is not the answer.

When Rasūlullāh's (peace be upon him) beloved son Ibrāhīm — his last son, still a baby — passed away, Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him) wept, with tears rolling through his eyes. The companions came and saw him and said: O Messenger of Allah, you are crying? You have forbidden us to cry for our lost ones, our loved ones, and you yourself are crying — why so? Why do you tell us not to cry, and now you yourself cry — what is happening?

Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him) said: "I have forbidden you from wailing, and from crying in the way the ignorant people, the people of jāhilīyah, used to do before Islam." Before his time, there were people especially hired as criers, as wailers — a contract made with them, so much for three hours of crying, some two hundred [in payment] — brought into the janāzah, to sit in corners and sing songs, poetry of grief and misery, hitting themselves and crying: this is called wailing. "I forbid you from doing this; this is ḥarām. We do not do this."

But, he said, there is another form of crying, the one that is felt: "it is a sign of compassion in the heart, feeling the loss, feeling the pain in the heart" — this, he said, is acceptable. If the heart is hard, if the heart is rock, one will not be able to cry at all. "As Muslims," he said, "although it is the taqdīr of Allah (swt), the qadar of Allah (swt), our fate, the destiny written for us, which will never change — nonetheless, when the qadar and qaḍāʾ happens, a heart feels the sadness, and the eyes interpret that sadness through tears. I too am an ʿabd; out of mercy, out of raḥmah, I too cry." This form of crying is acceptable, without going into any excess.

Some years ago, at a graveyard, some daughters and some sons, loving their parents so much, would not allow the janāzah to be buried, to the point that the police had to be called: they clung onto the janāzah, crying, Baba, where are you going, do not leave us — dead, gone, finished, this cannot be done; this is ḥarām. But there is nothing wrong with simply standing at the side of the cemetery with ḥuzn, sadness, grief in the heart, and the tears simply coming, rolling through — there is nothing wrong with this; it is a sign of raḥmah, a sign of mercy in the heart. This type of attitude, toward losses and tribulations of every kind, from the simplest to the most difficult, follows the sunnah: innā lillāhi wa innā ilayhi rājiʿūn, yā Rabbī give me something better than that. Nobody can replace a mother; nobody can replace a father; nobody can replace a child one loves so much. But nonetheless, fa-ṣabrun jamīl — it is only a beautiful patience that can be shown; that is the lot, that is the duty, of a Muslim when afflicted by a tribulation, a difficulty: to bear it in the heart, to persevere in the heart, but fully aware that this is from Allah (swt), from Allah (swt) and not from anybody else — and the decree of Allah (swt) cannot be changed.

There is the account of a shaykh of his who passed away, raḥimahullāh, in a car accident. When his son walked into the room where the janāzah was being washed, and looked at him, and simply kissed his forehead just after the washing was finished — with watery eyes — and his wife stood outside, with simple, silent tears in her eyes, never showing any excessive behaviour of any kind: this is the adab of a Muslim, because it is the taqdīr of Allah (swt), which cannot be changed. Difficulties will always come, whether one likes it or not; so in times of difficulty, ṣabr must be made, and in times of goodness and ease, duʿāʾ and shukr must be made, as Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him) tells us and advises us to do. May Allah (swt) give this ability, this particular quality, this particular attribute of ṣabr, and firmly establish it as part of one's character, inshāʾAllāh.

Alḥamdu lillāhi Rabbi al-ʿālamīn. Subḥānaka Allāhumma bi-ḥamdik, nashhadu an lā ilāha illā anta waḥdaka lā sharīka lak, nastaghfiruka wa natūbu ilayk.