“And certainly, We shall test you with
something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits, but give glad
tidings to As-Sâbirin (the patient ones, etc.). Who, when afflicted with
calamity, say: “Truly! To Allâh we belong and truly, to Him we shall return. They
are those on whom are the Salawât (i.e. blessings, etc.) (i.e. who are blessed
and will be forgiven) from their Lord, and (they are those who) receive His
Mercy, and it is they who are the guided-ones.”
(Al-Baqarah 2:155-157)
Then he (i.e. Ibn Al-Qayyim) mentioned
the Hadeeth of Al-Istirja‘ (1) and then he said: This expression is one of the
most effective and most beneficial treatments for one who is afflicted by
calamities, because it contains two fundamental principles, which if they are
realized, the slave will be consoled thereby from his calamity.
The first of them is that the slave and
his wealth belong to Allaah and He has given it to him as a loan.
The second of them is that the return
is to Allaah and it is inevitable that he will leave the life of this world
behind; so if this is his beginning and his end, then his thinking about them
is one of the greatest treatments for this illness and a part of his treatment
is that he knows that what was ordained to afflict him cannot miss him and what
was ordained to miss him cannot afflict him.