The Fourth Remedy

O complaining sick person! You have no right to complain; rather, your duty is to be grateful and patient. Your body, limbs, and faculties are not your own property. You did not create them, nor did you purchase them from someone else. Therefore, they belong to another, and their Owner disposes of His property as He wills.

For example, as explained in The Twenty-Sixth Word, suppose an immensely wealthy and highly skilled artist hires a poor man as a model for an agreed wage in order to display one of his beautifully adorned and exquisitely crafted garments. The artist dresses the man in the garment and, in order to exhibit the excellence of his craftsmanship, cuts it, alters it, lengthens it, shortens it, and arranges it in different ways. Would the hired model have the right to say: “You are causing me discomfort by making me bend and stand, and by altering this garment, which suits me so well, you are spoiling my appearance”? Could he accuse the artist of being cruel or unjust?

O sick person! Likewise, the Sāni-i Dhu’l-JalālAllah, Who creates with perfect artistry and Whose greatness and majesty are boundless. has clothed you with the garment of a body adorned with luminous faculties such as the eye, the ear, the intellect, and the heart. In order to display the manifestations of His Most Beautiful Names, He places you in many different conditions and causes you to undergo many changes. Just as through hunger you come to know His Name ar-RazzāqThe Provider; Allah, Who provides sustenance for all creation., so through illness you come to know His Name ash-ShāfīAllah, the One Who grants healing and cure..

Since pains and afflictions reveal the manifestations of certain of His Names, behind them lie flashes of wisdom and rays of mercy within which many beauties shine forth. If the veil covering the illness you dislike and fear were lifted, you would discover behind it pleasant and beautiful meanings.

The Fifth Remedy

O sick person afflicted with illness! Through experience I have become convinced that, in these times, illness is for some people a gift from Allah the Most Merciful and a divine favour. During the past eight or nine years, although I do not consider myself worthy of it, a number of young people have come to me requesting prayers because of their illnesses. I noticed that, compared with their peers, these young people had begun to reflect more upon the Hereafter. They were free from the intoxication of youth and had, to some extent, delivered themselves from the base desires that arise from heedlessness. Therefore, I pointed out to them that their illnesses, so long as they remained within bearable limits, were divine blessings.

I told each of them: “My brother, I am not opposed to your illness. I do not pity you because of it in such a way that I feel compelled to pray for its removal. Rather, strive to remain patient until your illness has fully awakened you. Once it has fulfilled its purpose, the Compassionate Creator will, inshāAllāhIf Allah wills”; an expression used when speaking about a future event and expressing the hope that it will occur by the will of Allah., grant you healing.”

I also said: “Because of the trial of good health, some of your peers fall into heedlessness, neglect their prayers, fail to think about the grave, and forget Allah. For the sake of an apparent pleasure lasting but an hour in this worldly life, they damage—perhaps even ruin—their eternal life. Through your illness, however, you are able to contemplate the grave, your inevitable dwelling place, and the abodes beyond it in the Hereafter, and you prepare yourself accordingly. Thus, your illness is a form of good health for you, whereas the good health enjoyed by some of your contemporaries is, in reality, a sickness.”