Imām Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (d. 751 AH/1350 CE) said in Madārij as-Sālikīn:
The servant has eleven perspectives through which he may consider the harm inflicted upon him by others and the wrongdoing committed against him.
The First Perspective: Divine Decree (al-Qadar)
This is the perspective mentioned by the Shaykh : the perspective of divine decree. Whatever befalls a person occurs by the Will of Allah, His Decree and His Predestination. He therefore regards it as he would the effects of heat and cold, illness and pain, the blowing of winds or the withholding of rain. All these matters occur by the Will of Allah. Whatever Allah wills must inevitably come to pass, and whatever He does not will can never occur.
When a person recognises this, he finds relief and understands that what has occurred was decreed to happen. There is therefore no reason to despair or become agitated over it, just as there is no reason to despair over heat, cold, illness or death.
The Second Perspective: Patience (aṣ-Ṣabr)
He reflects upon patience, recognising its obligation, its praiseworthy outcome, the reward prepared for those who practise it, and the joy and happiness that result from it. Patience protects him from the regret that follows retaliation and revenge, for no one has ever avenged himself without subsequently regretting it.
He understands that if he does not endure this trial patiently by choice, which is praiseworthy, he will be compelled to endure something greater against his will, which is blameworthy.
The Third Perspective: Forgiveness, Pardon and Forbearance (al-ʿAfw wa-ṣ-Ṣafḥ wa-l-Ḥilm)
When a person reflects upon forgiveness, its virtue, its sweetness and the honour it brings, he will not abandon it unless his insight has become clouded. Allah increases a servant in nothing but honour through forgiveness, as has been authentically reported from the Prophet and confirmed through experience. No one has ever sought revenge for himself without incurring humiliation.
Moreover, forgiveness, pardon and forbearance bring a sweetness, tranquillity, peace of heart, nobility of character, honour and elevation of the soul that cannot be attained through retaliation and revenge.
The Fourth Perspective: Contentment (ar-Riḍā)
Contentment is a station higher than forgiveness and pardon. It can only be attained by souls that have achieved tranquillity, particularly when the harm suffered has resulted from remaining steadfast for the sake of Allah.
When a person is afflicted for the sake of Allah, seeking His Pleasure and Love, he remains content with whatever befalls him for His Sake. This is the condition of every sincere lover: he accepts the hardships he encounters in seeking the pleasure of the one he loves.
When a person becomes discontented with these hardships and complains about them, this indicates that his claim to love is not sincere. Reality bears witness to this. As it was said concerning the sincere lover:
من أجلك قد جعلتُ خَدِّي أرضَا … للشّامت والحسود حتّى تَرضَى
“For your sake, I have made my cheek the ground for the spiteful and envious, until you are pleased.”
Whoever is not content with what befalls him in the path of the one he loves should relinquish the station of love and step aside, for he is not suited to this path.
The Fifth Perspective: Excellence (al-Iḥsān)
This is a station higher than those that precede it. It entails responding to the wrongdoing of the one who harms him with goodness and treating him kindly whenever he behaves badly towards him.
This becomes easier when a person understands that he has gained an advantage over the wrongdoer, who has effectively gifted him his good deeds, removing them from his own record and placing them in the record of the one he wronged. He should therefore thank him and respond with kindness, although his kindness cannot compare with the benefit that the wrongdoer has brought him.
Here, it is beneficial to consider whether a gift necessitates recompense. This unfortunate person has gifted him his good deeds. If he is generous, he should recompense him for them, so that the gift may be confirmed and the giver prevented from reclaiming it. There are well-known accounts concerning this among people of noble character and resolute determination.
This also becomes easier when a person recognises that recompense corresponds to the nature of one’s deeds. If this is how he behaves when another person wrongs him, forgiving him and treating him with goodness despite his own need, weakness and poverty, then he should consider how the All-Good, the All-Powerful, the Almighty and the Self-Sufficient will treat him when he wrongs Him. Allah will respond to his wrongdoing with the same goodness with which he responded to the wrongdoing of His servant. This is inevitable, and the Sunnah contains numerous evidences for it, for whoever reflects upon them.
The Sixth Perspective: Inner Peace and Tranquillity of Heart (Salāmat al-Qalb)
This is an exceedingly noble station for whoever recognises it and experiences its sweetness.
A person does not occupy his heart and innermost self with the harm he has suffered, nor with seeking revenge and satisfying his desire for retaliation. Rather, he empties his heart of such concerns and recognises that preserving its peace, tranquillity and freedom from these burdens is more beneficial, more pleasurable, more wholesome and more conducive to his interests.
When the heart becomes preoccupied with one matter, it misses something more important and beneficial. In this way, a person suffers a loss. Someone possessing sound judgement would not accept this, recognising such behaviour as the conduct of a foolish person.
How can the tranquillity of a sound heart be compared with a heart filled with resentment, troubling thoughts and the exhausting pursuit of revenge?
The Seventh Perspective: Security (al-Amn)
When a person abandons retaliation and revenge, he protects himself from something worse than the original harm. However, when he retaliates, he inevitably exposes himself to fear, for retaliation breeds enmity.
A sensible person does not feel secure from his enemy, even if that enemy appears insignificant. How many an insignificant person has brought ruin upon an enemy far greater than himself!
When a person forgives, refrains from revenge and does not retaliate, he protects himself from the emergence or escalation of enmity. His forgiveness, forbearance and pardon will inevitably weaken the force of his enemy and restrain his agitation, unlike retaliation. Experience also bears witness to this.
The Eighth Perspective: Striving in the Path of Allah
A person recognises that the harm inflicted upon him by others may arise from his striving in the Path of Allah, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, establishing the Religion of Allah and exalting His Word.
The one who occupies this station has sold his soul, wealth and honour to Allah in exchange for the greatest price. If he wishes to receive that price, he must surrender the commodity he has offered, thereby becoming entitled to its recompense.
He therefore has no claim against those who harm him, nor any right to demand compensation from them, if he has willingly accepted the terms of this transaction. His reward has become incumbent upon Allah.
This is established by explicit texts and the consensus of the Companions . For this reason, the Prophet prevented the Emigrants (al-Muhājirūn) from settling in Makkah, may Allah honour it, and did not return to any of them the houses or wealth seized by the disbelievers. Nor did he require compensation for those whom the disbelievers had killed in the Path of Allah.
When Abū Bakr aṣ-Ṣiddīq intended to hold those who had apostatised liable for the lives and wealth of the Muslims that they had destroyed, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said in the presence of the Companions :
تِلْكَ دِمَاءٌ وَأَمْوَالٌ ذَهَبَتْ فِي اللَّهِ، وَأُجُورُهَا عَلَى اللَّهِ، وَلَا دِيَةَ لِشَهِيدٍ
“Those are lives and possessions that have been lost for the sake of Allah, and their reward is with Allah. There is no blood money for one who dies for the sake of Allah.”
The Companions unanimously accepted ʿUmar’s position, and Abū Bakr agreed with him.
Whoever remains steadfast for the sake of Allah until he is harmed for His Sake must refrain from personal vengeance. Allah mentions the advice of Luqmān to his son:
﴿يَا بُنَيَّ أَقِمِ الصَّلَاةَ وَأْمُرْ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَانْهَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَاصْبِرْ عَلَىٰ مَا أَصَابَكَ ۖ إِنَّ ذَٰلِكَ مِنْ عَزْمِ الْأُمُورِ﴾
“O my son! Perform Aṣ-Ṣalāt (the prayers), enjoin (people) for Al-Maʿrūf (Islamic Monotheism and all that is good), and forbid (people) from Al-Munkar (i.e. disbelief in the Oneness of Allah, polytheism of all kinds and all that is evil and bad), and bear with patience whatever befalls you. Verily, these are some of the important commandments ordered by Allah with no exemption.” [Q 31:17]
The Ninth Perspective: Recognising Allah’s Blessings (an-Niʿmah)
This perspective encompasses several aspects.
The first is recognising Allah’s favour in making a person the one who has been wronged and awaits victory, rather than the wrongdoer who awaits Allah’s Anger and Punishment. If a sensible person were given a choice between the two, and one of them were unavoidable, he would choose to be wronged rather than to wrong another.
Another aspect is recognising Allah’s blessing in making the trial an expiation for sins. No worry, grief or harm befalls a believer except that Allah expiates some of his sins through it. In reality, such an affliction is a remedy through which the disease of sins and transgressions is drawn out of him.
Whoever is content to meet Allah carrying all his ailments and sicknesses, without treating them in this world with a remedy that brings about his recovery, is truly at a loss and has acted foolishly.
The harm inflicted upon a person by others resembles the bitter medicine prescribed by a compassionate physician who wishes him well. He should not focus upon the bitterness and unpleasantness of the medicine, nor upon the person through whose hands it reaches him. Rather, he should consider the compassion of the physician who prepared it for him and sent it through someone whose actions, despite the harm they caused, ultimately benefited him.
Another aspect is recognising that the affliction could have been more severe. There is no trial except that something greater and more grievous could have occurred. If there is no greater trial that could have afflicted his body or wealth, then he should consider the preservation of his religion, Islām and Tawḥīd. Every calamity that falls short of a calamity affecting one’s religion is comparatively insignificant. Indeed, the true calamity is the calamity of religion.
Another aspect is recognising that the full reward for enduring the affliction will be granted on the Day of Poverty and Need. It is reported in some narrations that, on the Day of Resurrection, people will wish that their skins had been cut with scissors when they see the reward bestowed upon those who endured trials.
A servant will also rejoice greatly on the Day of Resurrection over the rights he possesses against other people concerning wealth, life and honour. A sensible person preserves these rights as treasure for the Day of Poverty and Need, rather than squandering them through revenge that brings him no real benefit.
The Tenth Perspective: Taking the Righteous as Examples (al-Uswah)
This is an exceedingly subtle and noble perspective.
A sensible and discerning believer is pleased to take as his examples the Messengers of Allah, His Prophets, His Awliyāʾ and those whom He has specially chosen from His creation. They were the people most severely tested by others, and the harm inflicted upon them came swiftly, like a torrent rushing down a steep slope.
It is sufficient to reflect upon the accounts of the Prophets and their peoples, as well as the life of our Prophet Muḥammad and the harm inflicted upon him by his enemies, which surpassed the harm suffered by those before him.
Waraqah ibn Nawfal informed him that he would be accused of lying, driven out and harmed. He also told him that no one had ever brought anything like what he had brought except that people became hostile towards him.
This continued among those who inherited his mission, just as it had occurred to the one from whom they inherited it, the Prophet .
Should a servant not be pleased to follow the example of the finest of Allah’s creation and the most distinguished of His servants, each according to his rank?
Whoever wishes to understand this should examine the trials endured by the scholars and the harm inflicted upon them by the ignorant. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr compiled a book on this subject entitled Miḥan al-ʿUlamāʾ (The Trials of the Scholars).
The Eleventh Perspective: Tawḥīd
This is the greatest and loftiest of all the perspectives.
When a person’s heart is filled with love of Allah, sincerity towards Him, worship and devotion to Him, preferring His Pleasure, drawing near to Him, finding delight in Him, enjoying intimate companionship with Him, finding tranquillity in Him, longing to meet Him, taking Him alone as his Protector, entrusting all his affairs to Him and being content with His Decrees; and when he becomes wholly absorbed in love of Him, fear of Him, hope in Him, remembrance of Him and reliance upon Him, to the exclusion of everything else, there remains absolutely no room in his heart to dwell upon the harm inflicted upon him by people.
How much less, then, would there be room for occupying his heart, thoughts and innermost self with seeking revenge and retaliation?
Such preoccupation can only arise in a heart that lacks something sufficient to enrich it and compensate it for these concerns. It resembles a hungry heart that has not been satisfied. Whenever it sees food, its inclinations turn towards it and its desires are stirred.
As for the heart that has been filled with the highest and noblest nourishment, it pays no attention to what lies beneath it.
Allah says:
﴿ذَٰلِكَ فَضْلُ اللَّهِ يُؤْتِيهِ مَن يَشَاءُ ۚ وَاللَّهُ ذُو الْفَضْلِ الْعَظِيمِ﴾
“That is the Grace of Allah, which He bestows on whom He wills. And Allah is the Owner of Great Bounty.” [Q 57:21]
References
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr (d. 751 AH/1350 CE), Madārij as-Sālikīn bayna Manāzil Iyyāka Naʿbudu wa-Iyyāka Nastaʿīn, ʿAṭāʾāt al-ʿIlm edition, vol. 3, pp. 51–59.
