No Maturity Without Suffering

But a principle must be understood, a sunnatullāh, a law of Allah (swt). Allah (swt) does not bring the human being who has submitted to Him to maturity — Islamic maturity — without first putting him through some trials, some suffering, some sacrifices, some tests. It is impossible. The Ṣaḥābah (may Allah be pleased with them all) did not become raḍiyAllāhu ʿanhum ajmaʿīn merely because they were friends of Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him). They went through so much suffering, so many sacrifices, and they continually showed ṣabr, ṣabr, ṣabr, ṣabr.

Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt (may Allah be pleased with him) approached Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him) under a tree — not much of a tree^** — when the Makkans, the mushrikīn, boycotted the Muslims. They gathered all the Muslims into one area of Makkah and declared a full embargo: no marriage with these people, no trade with these people, no food for these people, nothing for these people — meaning the Muslims — and the Muslims were suffering badly. In those years, some Muslims could not take it any longer. They came crying and asked Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him): O Messenger of Allah, why do you not make duʿāʾ to Allah (swt)? You are the raḥmatan li'l-ʿālamīn; you are the Messenger of Allah (swt); whatever duʿāʾ you make, He will accept — so ask Him, that we may be relieved of this pain and suffering.

Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him) turned around with anger on his face and said: wallāhi, you are very impatient people — referring to some of the Ṣaḥābah. The people before you, the other ummahs before you, the people to whom Allah (swt) sent other prophets, were made to stand before fire and told: deny your dīn, or we will kill you. And how would they kill them? They would saw the person in half, alive. And still they would never give up their religion. The boiling oil — they threw their children into the fire, into the boiling oil, the hot oil — and they never gave up their dīn. They showed ṣabr. Wallāhi, he said, you are impatient.

The point is this. There is a very famous ḥadīth of Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him), treated later in this chapter, in which Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him) says that the nuṣrah of Allah (swt) — nuṣrah meaning the help of Allah (swt) — is with ṣabr, or follows right after it. A person must show some sacrifice and must be patient, and then Allah (swt) brings His help to him. He does not help directly. Through pain and suffering a person becomes mature, Islamically mature. If Allah (swt) gave this ummah everything now — if there were sharīʿah tomorrow, a khalīfah tomorrow, Islam everywhere tomorrow — then, Allāhu aʿlam, because we are not ready yet, we would with our own hands destroy Islam completely. This ummah, this generation of Muslims, is so lacking in īmān, in education, in maturity, in Islamic maturity, that it would not know what to do if Allah (swt) were to give it Islam right now. It is almost impossible.

But the Ṣaḥābah (may Allah be pleased with them all) went through the suffering. They went through so much suffering, and they showed immense ṣabr — no complaints, except for a few cases where Rasūlullāh (peace be upon him) put them straight. They put up with it, with no qualms, nothing at all. Then Allah (swt) made them the Ṣaḥābah, the Companions, whose level no other Muslims after them can ever reach — no matter how learned they are, no matter how saintly, no matter how pious, no matter how much of the awliyāʾ they are, they can never come to the level of the Ṣaḥābah, the golden generation. Al-insān al-kāmil, the perfect human being, and the kamālāt, perfection: these are received, given to a person, only after he has gone through suffering. He has to exercise patience.