‹Seek Help through Patience and Prayer›: Do Not Imagine You Are the Only Victim

Occasion: Transcription of a Fajr khatira delivered on 28 March 2026Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High, says: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اسْتَعِينُوا بِالصَّبْرِ وَالصَّلَاةِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الصَّابِرِينَ﴾ (“O you who believe, seek help through patience and prayer. Indeed, Allah is with the patient”).^[1] The concept of patience in itself needs to be grasped at its highest levels.

The Significance of Seeking Help

The significance of seeking help in itself is that there is a perception and awareness of a problem that has befallen you and surrounds your sides and your ribs, so you look to the horizon to see a light from which to draw inspiration for relief, and through which to see a way out of a calamity that has come down upon you or an obstacle that stands before you that you want to cross. And this striving in itself needs patience.

And if we look at the prayer in itself, it is a carving out of time, a carving out of earning a livelihood, a carving out of being busy with children and others; parts of life that you take. So you are before another kind of confrontation: do you have humility or not? You say “Allahu akbar” while your mind is still scattered, so it is as though you did not pray. So the prayer in itself requires a kind of seeking help that is completed only by the realization of patience first.

Patience and Prayer Together

Then the verse that followed it: ﴿وَلَا تَقُولُوا لِمَنْ يُقْتَلُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ أَمْوَاتٌ بَلْ أَحْيَاءٌ وَلَكِنْ لَا تَشْعُرُونَ﴾ (“And do not say about those who are killed in the way of Allah, ‘They are dead.’ Rather, they are alive, but you do not perceive it”).^[2] So it is as though patience and prayer cooperate together to reach a degree of understanding: that in this life we engage in constant, continuous fights between us and the parties of life who want to invade us within ourselves. And we have another concept that is greater, broader and more comprehensive, but at least in the simple treatments we fight night and day: with current events, and with Satan who wants to lead you astray, and with the children in the house, and with laziness, and with our livelihoods.

Then He says: ﴿وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ﴾ (“And We will surely test you”).^[3] So it is as though “patience and prayer” came only as preludes to a matter. And in “And We will surely test you” there is the concept of trial itself; imagine you are thinking about a child of yours dying, we ask Allah for well-being. The mere thought is unbearable. Or that health suddenly goes. Imagine a person going to see the results of tests while he is sick and in pain, and the doctor has told him that we are not very comfortable but let us do such-and-such and tomorrow is the final decision, and then they call him from the clinic every little while: Come, come. Imagine this journey from home to the clinic; it may take in of patience and readiness to receive the news the equivalent of ten light-years. And from here: ﴿اسْتَعِينُوا﴾ (“seek help”), seek aid; imagine patience in itself as an aid to complete the journey.

The Basic Condition of Life Is Weariness

My brothers, may Allah preserve your station, people want life easy, comfortable, simple and soft, and this is not among the concepts of the life we live. The basic condition of life is weariness, toil, exertion and suffering; we must understand this. And accordingly, if you meet a problem with a child or spouse or neighbor or relative or anyone, do not be so astonished, and do not see yourself as a victim; you are one of the people at large. Enter the homes of people, and you will not see a single home free of problems. Whoever has a home without a problem, let him raise his hand; you will not find anyone raising his hand.

And the greater calamity is that in our lives there are real problems and imagined problems. There is a real problem that truly exists and I suffer with it, and there is an imagined problem.

A Real Problem and an Imagined Problem

Imagine two women who sat together, each complaining about her husband. The first said: He does such-and-such. So the second said: How fortunate you are! The first says: How can you say I am fortunate when I am complaining? So she answers her that he is patient, and that he is such-and-such, and she reveals to her aspects of this person’s character that she had not been aware of. Was the first one’s tragedy real or imagined? Imagined. Then the second begins to talk about other aspects of her husband that this one does not see, and the first says to her: You are fortunate. Allahu akbar, how does this happen!

And when a man comes to me complaining about his son, saying such-and-such, I say to him: My brother, can you thank Allah that you have a son at all? From the beginning of life thank Allah that you have a son; the good that is in you passes to him someday, even if he goes out and moves away, Allah, blessed and exalted, will bring him back one day. Can you thank Allah that He taught you how to pray to Him to return your son to you if he has been absent from you?

And some people complain of poverty. Is this a realized calamity or an imagined pain? So you say to him: What is it that you lack in the aspects of life? And he turns out to be fully healthy, praise be to Allah, while another is sick and has a great deal of money that does not suffice him for the treatment of his illness; so Allah, blessed and exalted, compensated him with health in place of money. And another man complains, and another complains, and all people complain. So the Lord of the worlds, glory be to Him, the Most High, says: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اسْتَعِينُوا بِالصَّبْرِ وَالصَّلَاةِ﴾ (“O you who believe, seek help through patience and prayer”).

The Qur’anic Context: Do Not Forget the Bigger Picture

Look at the context in which the verse came. It came in the quarter that began with His saying: ﴿سَيَقُولُ السُّفَهَاءُ مِنَ النَّاسِ مَا وَلَّاهُمْ عَنْ قِبْلَتِهِمُ الَّتِي كَانُوا عَلَيْهَا قُلْ لِلَّهِ الْمَشْرِقُ وَالْمَغْرِبُ يَهْدِي مَنْ يَشَاءُ إِلَى صِرَاطٍ مُسْتَقِيمٍ﴾ (“The foolish among the people will say, ‘What has turned them away from their qiblah which they used to face?’ Say, ‘To Allah belong the east and the west. He guides whom He wills to a straight path’”).^[4] So it is as though you forgot all this speech, and you took notice the moment you heard “O you who believe, seek help through patience”: Oh wow, why are you crying? You have a problem! You forgot the Qur’anic context, and that there is a battle going on around Islam and the Muslims, and that there is a very great issue in the world of life called corruption, and that there is a greater Satan and a lesser Satan and devils in the middle playing in order to lead humanity astray. You forgot all of that, then turned to a very small detail in your life.

And if we want to conclude from these words, we seek from Allah help in every step we take. Do not imagine pain while you are in good health, for Allah is aware of your state, knowing of your needs, answering your request at every time. And do not imagine that you are the victim and not others; for every person has his own particular trial, and no one can know his trial in its reality except if he becomes acquainted with the trials of the people who live around him.

﴿وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ﴾ (“And give good tidings to the patient”)

Look at the next verse: ﴿وَلَنَبْلُوَنَّكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ مِنَ الْخَوْفِ وَالْجُوعِ وَنَقْصٍ مِنَ الْأَمْوَالِ وَالْأَنْفُسِ وَالثَّمَرَاتِ وَبَشِّرِ…﴾ (“And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, and give good tidings…”). So the good tidings will not be here but there. And when the Lord of the worlds said “and give good tidings,” did He say: and give good tidings to those who obtain the results they seek? No, rather He said: ﴿وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ﴾ (“And give good tidings to the patient”). So what is the meaning of their being patient to the end? That they did not obtain what they want. Is that not so? If I now desire to have a large sum of money, do I need to be patient before I obtain it? I would need to be patient: I go to my work and set out among people and am patient with them until I gain little by little, by what Allah wills. Then when the sum is obtained, the concept of patience ends. But then our Lord, glory be to Him, says: ﴿وَبَشِّرِ الصَّابِرِينَ الَّذِينَ إِذَا أَصَابَتْهُمْ مُصِيبَةٌ﴾ (“And give good tidings to the patient, who, when disaster strikes them”)^[5] what did they say? ﴿إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ…﴾ (“Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him…”).^[6] “Indeed we belong to Allah”: I, in my very being, belong to Allah.

So it is as though He moves the level of thinking from obtaining material particulars in this world to what lies beyond this universe in which people live, to another world, completely different, in which Allah rewards His servants according to how much they were patient, not according to what came into their hands.

We ask Allah, blessed and exalted, to reward us and you, to teach us how to be patient with what is in our hands, and to grant us good seeking of help in what is with Him, glory be to Him, exalted on high.

--- ^[1]: al-Baqarah: 153. Editor's documentation: The speaker recited the verse in full. ^[2]: al-Baqarah: 154. ^[3]: al-Baqarah: 155. Editor's documentation: The speaker here contented himself with saying «ولنبلونكم», then cited the verse later up to «وبشر». ^[4]: al-Baqarah: 142. The speaker mentioned that it is the beginning of the quarter. ^[5]: al-Baqarah: 156, and its completion is: ﴿قَالُوا إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ﴾ (“they say, ‘Indeed we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we will return’”). Editor's documentation: I have set down of the verse as much as the speaker uttered. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: The transcription broke off at «وإنا إليه» and so was not completed in the body text.