Brief Summary

'Uddat as-Sabireen wa Dhakirat ash-Shakireen by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah رحمه الله‎‎ tells us how patience and gratitude are essential for a believer to be peaceful and happy both in this life and the next. It provides actionable advice for strengthening patience to help readers pursue spiritual goals and persevere in the face of adversity.

Who should read the book?

• Those who are experiencing pain and want more peace and happiness in their life

• People interested to become a strong believer

• Anyone who wants to feel happy, even when things go wrong

Table of Contents

• What is the book about?

• Favourite quote from the book

• Summary of Key Ideas

  • Understanding Patience

  • When Patience is Absolutely Necessary

  • Patience and Our Fate in the Akhirah

  • Practicing and Strengthening Patience

  • How to Gain Allah’s Love and Companionship

  • Patience + Gratitude = Imaan

• About the Author

What is the book about?

'Uddat as-Sabireen wa Dhakirat ash-Shakireen is an empowering book that inspires and guides you toward a state of true happiness with the power of patience and gratitude. The author discusses the importance of patience in the life of a Muslim, and offers practical advice to cultivating it such as reframing negative thoughts, being grateful, focusing on the reward of persevering and more.

Favourite quote from the book

Summary of Key Ideas

Understanding Patience

Patience (Sabr) is defined as a positive psychological attitude that helps individuals restrain themselves from harmful behaviour. It involves two internal forces: one that drives you toward good actions and another that restrains you from actions that are harmful to yourself or others.

Patience also means refraining from panicking at times of stress as impatience and panic cause harm. Complaining does not contradict patience if it is towards Allah, however, if someone complains to people either with words or how they look and behave then that is being impatient.

When Patience is Absolutely Necessary

Patience is necessary for you as a believer, to achieve your human potential and fulfil your life’s purpose of worshipping Allah. It is what will give you happiness in this life and salvation in the Hereafter, therefore, it is required in the following.

Worshipping Allah and following His commands: This involves consistent acts of worship, performed according to the Sunnah done solely for Allah’s pleasure and to draw nearer to Him.

You should also refrain from telling others about your acts of worship and avoid feeling proud of them.

Abstaining from wrong actions: This involves fearing Allah’s punishment for the wrongdoing, or through a feeling of haya’ (shyness or shame) for misusing His blessings in disobedience.

The best way, however, is by breaking all sinful habits and cutting out anyone who encourages you to sin.

Accepting the decree of Allah during times of trial and adversity: This involves thinking of the good rewards that are waiting for you for being patient, hopefully anticipating a time of ease, reflecting on Allah’s countless blessings and favours, and remembering His past blessings and favours.

Beyond patience, you can also respond to adversity by accepting with contentment, or even gratitude—these are higher status than patience.

In facing adversity caused by others, you can forgive, refrain from revenge, accept Allah’s decree while acknowledging the harm caused by the wrongdoer, or at the highest level, you can respond with kindness toward the wrongdoer.

Patience and Our Fate in the Akhirah

Our condition in the Hereafter is determined by how we navigate the battle between reason and religious motives and whims and desires. To have patience means that your common sense and religious motives are stronger and can limit your natural inclinations and desires.

Eternal Paradise: This is for those who consistently exercise self-control in order to obey Allah because their religious motive is very strong. They are feared by Shaytan and enjoy Allah’s companionship. Therefore, they reach a level of patience in controlling and defeating their whims and desires that are impossible for others.

The strong believer exercise patience for the sake of Allah (hoping for His rewards and fearing His punishments) with the help of Allah and achieve much of what they want to achieve.

Eternal Hell: This is for those who completely succumb to their whims and desires to the point that their reason becomes enslaved to their desires. They are held captive by Shaytan leading them to deceit, indulgence of wishful thinking and self-admiration, procrastination in good deeds, and a preference for fleeting worldly pleasures over lasting gains in the Hereafter.

The evil person exercise patience by the help of Allah to follow their own whims and desires or the person is a failure who have no kind of patience whatsoever.

Temporary Hell, Then Paradise: This is for those who constantly struggle between motives of reason and religion, and motives of whims and desires. Sometimes one prevails, and sometimes the other gains the upper hand so they have a mix of good deeds and bad deeds.

The sincere but weak believer exercise patience for the sake of Allah but not by the help of Allah because they do not actively seek His help and their tawakkul is weak. This is the case of most believers. They will have a good ending but unfortunately cannot achieve much of what they want to achieve.

Practicing and Strengthening Patience

If you do not naturally possess the characteristic of patience, you can attain this characteristic by acting as if you do possess it, until it eventually becomes second nature.

Becoming more patient is also possible by having knowledge about the benefits of obeying Allah and avoiding the haram, and engaging in actions that encourage obedience while discouraging disobedience such as stopping bad habits that are controlling your lives, avoiding places of fitnah and temptation and keeping away from anything that could lead to sin.

The author listed the following to help strengthen reason and religious motives: