The Verse of Istiqāmah

This ageing came about because of Hūd and its sister sūrahs. And what is meant by Hūd and its sisters? Which part of this sūrah? There are of course things in it very similar to other sūrahs; but no — there is one verse in it, and that is verse 112, the verse of istiqāmah:

Fa-staqim kamā umirta wa man tāba maʿaka wa lā taṭghaw innahu bimā taʿmalūna baṣīr. Remain steadfast as you have been commanded. Remain steadfast as you have been ordered. And that is among the most difficult things there are.

Reading upon the notion of istiqāmah, which means steadfastness, one finds that if a man does become steadfast, it means he has a karāmah, a miracle of divine favour — and that is the greatest karāmah. A man walks through the air; a man is protected from a burst of bullets: that is a karāmah. But the true karāmah is that day in and day out, moment after moment, a man is upon the path of steadfastness.

Steadfastness is bound up with everything. It is bound up with everything. What it means is that a man in his ʿaqāʾid, in his beliefs, is upon neither extreme: he does not overdo the attributes of Allah; he does not overreach concerning the Prophet (peace be upon him), placing him where he is not, nor does he diminish him. Likewise in the matter of the ākhirah he has a full understanding. In his akhlāq and character he has neither shortcomings nor excesses; he is perfectly moderated, so far as may be, with equilibrium in his character, in his conduct, in what he does, in his daily rites. He does not go overboard. Istiqāmah, and to hold fast: qul āmantu bi-llāhi thumma staqim. Say, I believe in Allah, and then hold fast. That is a man's work.

And if anyone can do that — and there are not so many who can, though so far as one may — then that is the greatest karāmah. And one of the reasons it is a karāmah, a miracle of divine favour, is that the man who does it will generally be helped by Allah. He will be a walī of Allah. Look at the sound hadith in al-Bukhārī and elsewhere, where it says that those who have made a great effort in the farāʾiḍ and then in the nawāfil have come so close to Allah that Allah becomes the hands by which they touch, the feet by which they walk, the eyes by which they see. They are now divinely guided. It is only such a man who can keep istiqāmah. We ask Allah to make us of them.

That is the prominent verse of this sūrah, which had that effect even upon the Prophet (peace be upon him). With all the concerns of the Prophet (peace be upon him), he had only some twenty white hairs; and he says in this hadith that it was in fact due to this sūrah, and not to the affairs of the world, because his tawakkul was so great. When a man has so much tawakkul there is no stress; and it is stress that brings all of this on.