Living The Quran
From Issue: 931 [Read full issue]
Fortitude
Al-Baqara (The Cow) - Chapter 2: Verse 153
"O you who believe! Seek help in steadfast patience and prayer; for God is with those who are patient."
This verse asks people who have attained to faith to seek aid in patience and prayer when faced with adversity. There are many people in this world who are tested by adversity, just as the Muslims in Medina were. In our time, the world is only too familiar with refugees who have been driven from their homes, have had to flee leaving behind all their possessions, and consequently know danger, hunger and the loss of the fruits of their labour. A large proportion of such refugees today are Muslims.
To those who are patient in adversity the Quran gives 'glad tidings'. Is this evidence of a religious tradition that offers only fatalism? The question has always been posed and not just to Islam. The question misses, or rather misconstrues, the significance of the patience to be found in prayer. In the face of adversity the first necessity is the fortitude to endure rather than succumb, and this is exactly the aid to be derived from patience and prayer. The patience summoned is the inner strength and resolve to face down the adversities of one's situation. Despite their adversities the migrants to Medina were not passive and fatalistic, they were engaged in founding a new kind of society whose glad tidings were the possibility of living in a more just, equitable and righteous way. They are tested to the limit but faith is fortitude and hope.
Compiled From:
"Reading the Qur'an: The Contemporary Relevance of the Sacred Text of Islam" - Ziauddin Sardar