The Quran And Mourning for Hussain

‘ Patience’ in the Quran

When the above listed nonsensical reasons do not serve their purpose, then these innovators try to take support from the Quran by screaming until they are blue in the face that, ‘indeed Allah is with those who are patient’ (Surah 2, al-Baqarah, verse 153). They claim that instead of crying, patience should be exercised. But even the use of this verse as proof against crying is strange. At first sight one might be impressed with their argument. But on closer inspection one will ask, what is patience, what it the precise meaning of this term?

Does patience mean that tears cannot flow from the eyes and prayers cannot be uttered from the lips? Indeed if tears do flow from the eyes, if sighs of grief escape the lips, if it is hard to control the heart, then do these all contravene patience? No, absolutely not!

If the sole support of an old father’s life, that is his young son, dies, and at the time of his body being taken for burial, if the father is preoccupied by fun and sport or some other activity, will people not raise a finger at him asking what kind of a father is he? What kind of a hard-hearted person is he that his youthful son’s corpse is being taken from the home and yet the father’s heart is not affected by this calamity - there are no tears in the eyes, no cries on the lips. Indeed if we are affected by grief then we involuntarily lament and cry.

In fact, everything can be identified by its opposite: if there is grief and calamity then there is patience, and if there is no calamity then exercising patience is redundant. In reality patience means that when a calamity befalls us, then despite holding the power to exact revenge from the perpetrators, we do not do so, and instead our eyes fill with tears, our hearts are full of pain, and our lips utter painful sighs. We accept Allah’s will and through our silence we leave our matters in His Hands. This is patience. Thus the befalling of calamities, and crying over them, is a manifestation of patience.