The following is a speech converted into an article, which was delivered by Salaam Bhatti Sahib at the Jalsa Salana USA West Coast on 22 December 2023. In this speech, the dichotomy between our perseverance in worldly pursuits and our response to spiritual trials is explored. Drawing from the Holy Quran, the life of the Holy Prophetsa and the writings of the Promised Messiahas, the speech provides a reflection on the necessity of suffering for spiritual development and the power of prayer in navigating life’s hardships. The original delivery of this speech can be viewed on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl8E6x-lE_Q.
Salaam Bhatti, USA
It’s sad when you think about it. We struggle for 13 years in school. We voluntarily put ourselves through the hardships of four years of college. We willingly continue on this path for three to seven years for an advanced degree. We cry over days of finals and pull all-nighters. Despite all that trouble, we persevere through it because we want to get closer to a career, closer to this untouchable thing that becomes such a core part of our identity. As if having a job is all that we have been placed here for.
But, when Allah puts us through a struggle, a struggle with a sole purpose to achieve the soul’s purpose – nearness to Him – where is that very perseverance which we tapped into for 13, 17, or 20-some years? Why aren’t we willing to cry and pull all-nighters like we did in the days of our final exams to get closer to the One who knows the final day? Do we suffer in the way of Allah? Or, does suffering get in our way of Allah?
As I said, it’s sad when you think about it. But how often do you think about it?
We are trapped within the belly of the beast, not realising how deeply and utterly ensnared we are by the very evils which Islam teaches us to forbid. When the media we consume – whether it’s a popular scientist ridiculing God on YouTube shorts, front-page posts on Reddit celebrating atheism, misogynistic false messiahs pushing their product on their podcasts, or the claws of pornography gripping the minds of both adults and children – it’s no wonder we don’t think about it because Satan has worked tirelessly to not give us time to think. Satan is not holding back in completely surrounding you to drag you further down.
So, when Allah reaches in to lift us up, it disrupts that perception of ease – that siren song of slumber we soundly sleep in. Why else do you think the Promised Messiahas said: “Aye sonay walo jago” – O you who are sleeping, wake up!
The Holy Prophetsa said that paradise is surrounded by trials and hell is surrounded by temptations. Are you coasting in life right now? Are you currently enjoying many pleasures? Become uncomfortable. The Promised Messiahas says that believers are uncomfortable during times of ease. Believers know that there’s no growth during these times. Growth happens with trials.
So what are the trials Allah will put us through? The verse I recited at the beginning is translated in part as: “And We will try you with something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth and lives, and fruits.” (Surah al-Baqarah, Ch.2: V.156)
Fruits also mean your children, which is key because a woman’s son had died. She knelt by his grave – a grave that was smaller than the other graves – and wailed mournfully. People walked by, but she didn’t care. A man heard her and stopped. She didn’t care to look. He said, “Remember your duty to Allah and be patient.” She bitterly replied, “You don’t know what it’s like to feel this pain.” The man said nothing and carried on his way. Someone saw this happen and told her, “That was the Holy Prophetsa.”
She hurried to his home and apologetically said she hadn’t known it was him and that she is patient. The Prophetsa – with a heart that would endure the loss of 11 fruits, 11 children and grandchildren during his lifetime – simply replied, “Patience begins at the first stroke of calamity.” He knew the pain. And he modelled the behaviour for us to show. After all, he was the living embodiment of the Quran and verse 156 ends with “and give glad tidings to the patient.”
Sometimes, when we go through trials, we try to put on a brave face and repress our emotions. Why?
The Promised Messiahas says that it is okay to be sad during trials. Like when the Holy Prophet’ssa daughter sent word to him that her son was taking his last breaths. She begged him to come. He sent a message: “To Allah belongs that which He bestowed and to Him belongs that which he takes. Everything has its term fixed by Him. Let her be steadfast, therefore, and hope for His grace and mercy.”
She replied, begging him – for the sake of Allah – to come to her. So the Holy Prophetsa stood up and, with his Companions, went to see her. When he arrived, his grandchild was given to him, and he took him in his lap. Seeing the baby’s distress as he neared the end of life, our Rahmatul-lil-Alameen, our Mercy for Mankind, the Holy Prophet Muhammad’ssa tears began running, whereupon Sa’d said: “O Messenger of Allah, what is this?” The Prophetsa replied, “This is compassion which Allah has placed in the hearts of His servants and Allah has compassion on such of His servants as are compassionate.”
The Prophetsa endured many trials, and they never hardened his heart. He said: “I have been tortured for the sake of Allah as no one else has, and I have suffered fear for the sake of Allah as no one else has. I have spent three days when Bilal and I had no food that any living being could eat but that which could be concealed in the armpit of Bilal.” (Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 151)
And yet the Holy Prophetsa did not turn his back on Allah. The Prophet’s wife and uncle died after three terrible years of hunger. And yet he did not say, “Oh Allah, you’ve crossed the line this time.” The Prophetsa, who never had the opportunity to chase his father, to work with his mother to plan his wedding, who was cast out of his hometown by the very people who claimed to have respected him, he never bartered Allah’s signs for a paltry price.
But when we can’t marry the girl from school or the boy from work, we start shopping. We say, “Oh, but the Quran says I can marry women from the people of the book,” or “if he just signs the bai‘at form and holds out for a year, then it’ll be fine.” If you want to cherrypick then go work in an orchard. Islam is not a candy store where you can pick and choose all the things you think are sweet and ignore the things you consider too sour or too spicy.
Because truth be told, it is painful to pull yourself from this world. In the Promised Messiah’sas final Jalsa Salana, five months before he passed away, he laid it all out, saying that there are two painful experiences in the path of faith.
The first are things like salat, fasting, zakat and hajj. These are all things that move a person towards God. But within them, he can find a way that is of greatest comfort to him. For instance, in cold weather he can heat water for his ablutions. If he is ill and he cannot offer his prayers standing upright, he can sit. In these ordeals, a person seeks out a way of most comfort for him and for this reason he does not achieve a complete cleansing and ‘initiation’ to the different stages of spiritual development quickly. The tribulations that come from the heavens, however, have to be borne as man has no discretion over them. (“Trial and Tribulation”, speech delivered by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on 28 December 1907 at Jalsa Qadian, published in The Review of Religions in September 1997, www.alislam.org/)
My brothers and sisters, when we take the easy way out on these pillars, it weakens the roof; it weakens our resolve once we are tested by Allah Himself. When we pick and choose which teachings to follow, we put holes into the lens that shows us this world is a mirage. How many verses have we looked past when we see the Quran this way?
When Allah tells us, “We will try you with something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth and lives, and fruits”, He does not leave us hanging on what to do when the trials appear. He states: “Give glad tidings to the patient, who, when a misfortune overtakes them, say, ‘Surely, to Allah we belong and to Him shall we return.’”
The truth is, in an era of instant gratification, what if we are looking at suffering all wrong? What if suffering is actually not bad? The Holy Prophetsa says, “The greatest reward comes with the greatest trial. When Allah loves a people He tests them. Whoever accepts that wins His pleasure but whoever is discontent with that earns His wrath.” (Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4031)
In our path to becoming a believer, in our attempt to leave the warmth within the belly of the beast, this is a shock to our system. It makes us second-guess our God because we live in a world where anyone who disagrees with you is bad, anyone who makes it tough for you is bad, and anyone who cracks your echo chamber is bad. Have you lost the ability to zoom out from yourself, to cast aside this main character syndrome, and to think critically?
In Chapter 2, Verse 156, Allah states that trials are coming and to be patient. In Verse 157, Allah states when misfortunes come, say, “to Allah we belong, to Him we return.” Then comes Verse 158: “It is these on whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy, and it is these who are rightly guided.”
Now make the connection. When we recite Surah al-Fatihah over 20 times a day, we ask to be guided on the right path, the path of those upon whom Allah has bestowed His Blessings. Not the easy path, not the comfortable path, not the “all my friends are here so let’s go” path – the right path. The path that has the blessings. Allah clearly tells us how those blessings will come – the hardships and losses we need to patiently endure to get those blessings.
This path can and will be lonely at times. There will be a sneaking whispering coming from just beyond, desperate to envelope you and send you to hell. And when push comes to shove to see if you’ll stay on, some of you will fall hard. If you fall, don’t stay down because all hope is not lost. The Promised Messiahas counsels us that just as the hottest of water can burn whatever it touches, it can still put out the fire: “Likewise, no matter how much a person is immersed in sins, no matter how much he is drowning in bad deeds, even then he has the capacity to put out the fire of sins.” (“Trial and Tribulation – Part 2”, speech delivered by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on 28 December 1907 at Jalsa Qadian, published in The Review of Religions in September 1997, www.alislam.org/)
How do you cool water? Remove it from the source of heat. What are you connected to that is heating you up? When you disconnect from that and move closer to Allah, you will shed your impatient, impetuous, prideful, lesser self, which is painful because that has been who you are. But who you are is not who you are meant to be.
The Promised Messiahas teaches, “If someone was given a whip and asked to hit himself with it […] who would want to inflict pain on himself? This is why Allah the Exalted has placed another way for completion of human development [through these trials].” (Tafsir Hazrat Masih-e-Maud, Vol. 1, pp. 618-619; “The Essence of Trials and Tribulations”, Friday Sermon, 2 October 2015)
Allah, with 100% transparency, tells you the trials you will face: “We will try you with fear and hunger and loss of wealth and lives and fruit.” He’s being fully transparent that the right path is a tough path, and it will make us tough, compassionate people. Because wouldn’t any good friend want that for us?
The Promised Messiahas explains that Allah is exactly that – a friend to believers:
“With two friends, some times one listens to the other and other times he makes the other listen to him. The connection between Allah and a believer is also the same. At times He listens to the prayer of a true believer, as He states: ‘…Pray unto Me; I will answer your prayer…’ and at other times He wishes to make true believers listen to Him and states: ‘And We will try you with something of fear…’.” (Tafsir Hazrat Masih-e-Maud, Vol. I, pp. 603-604; “The Essence of Trials and Tribulations”, Friday Sermon, 2 October 2015)
Allah is that Friend we all need in our circle, telling us what we need to hear even though we don’t want to hear it – especially when we don’t want to hear it. He tells us uncomfortable truths – these trials – that ultimately help us rise to be closer to Him. What more do you want? What more could you want?
When the trials come, how do you protect yourself through them? Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Vaa has reminded us since the day he became Khalifa that we need to pray. This is the practice of the Holy Prophetsa before he even became a prophet. He looked around and saw baby girls killed for simply being born a girl, he saw the awful treatment hurled at slaves and women, and people drinking alcohol to excess. This was life? This is all there is to it? For years, he sought solace in the cave of Hira, crying out to whatever was out there listening.
And what was the result? The Promised Messiahas writes:
“Have you any notion what was the strange event that occurred in the Arabian wasteland when hundreds of thousands of the dead were revived within a few days, and those who had been misguided through generations exhibited Divine complexion, and those who were blind began to see, and those who had been dumb began to utter words of Divine wisdom, and the world underwent a revolution which no eye had seen before and no ear had heard of. Do you know how all this came about? It was the supplications during dark nights of one who had lost himself in God which caused a revolution in the world, and showed such wonders as could never have been expected from that Unlettered and Helpless one [the Holy Prophetsa].” (Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmadas, Blessings of Prayer [Surrey: Islam International Publications Ltd., 2007], p. 17)
And yet, some of us look at Palestine or Syria or Pakistan or Yemen, or a job we lost, or a broken-down car in the dead of winter, or a divorce decree in our hands, or an empty fridge at home, or yet another negative pregnancy test, or a miscarriage, and lament, “Ah, prayer won’t work.”
My dear brothers and sisters, prayer is the only thing that has ever worked. It is said that the two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. Just as it was a trial for you to be born, it will also be trials upon trials to find your why and how it leads you to Allah. You may experience trials that you will never understand. These are opportunities to zoom out, see how the Holy Prophetsa persevered through adversity, how other righteous people handled what they went through, and how those amongst you go through it today. Can you find the common thread to successfully navigate trials and see how to sew that into your life and stitch together whatever wounds you may have?
Patience. Prayer. Progress.
That’s how we receive the blessings when we begin to experience trials. The Promised Messiahas reminds us, “The hardships of this life end with death, but there is no end to that [next] world.” (Malfuzat [English], Vol. 10, pp. 105-107)
It’s not easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. Has anything worth having ever been easy? And yet you might be thinking, but it is cruel to take one’s child away. The Promised Messiahas reminds us that children are our guests. Our job is to treat them well and raise them in the best possible manner. Every day I drop my four-year-old son at preschool, I wonder, is this the last time I see him? And if it is, was I hospitable to my guest? Because he is not mine. They are not ours. We are not ours. That’s the meaning of belonging and returning to Allah.
When we say this after someone passes away, do we only say it because everyone else in the group chat said it, or do we actually feel the trial within our hearts? Happily embrace the trials Allah sends down for you, for Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmadrh writes:
“Suffering has been a great teacher, cultivating and culturing our conduct. Remove suffering as a causative factor in developing man’s potential and the wheel of progress would turn back a hundred thousand times. […] Thus, the question of apportioning blame for the existence of suffering upon the Creator should not arise. Suffering […] is indeed a blessing in disguise.” (Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad, Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth, p. 186)
It’s not about raising your fist to Allah and asking “why me?” It’s about raising your hands and seeing how He reaches down to grab them and pull you closer. You could hole yourself up in your home and never come out, thinking this will prevent any trials coming your way. Then you would forget that Allah promises He burdens not any soul beyond its capacity.
Hearing that such trials are inevitable could cause panic, anxiety, and perhaps depression. That could be your trial. Hazrat Ibn Abbasra asked Ata’ bin Abu Rabah whether he would like to see a woman who is from the people of Paradise. Ata replied yes, absolutely. Ibn Abbas pointed and said, “This woman, who came to the Prophetsa and said, ‘I suffer from epilepsy, so make supplication to Allah for me.’ He replied: ‘If you wish, be patient and you will enter Paradise; but if you wish, I will invoke Allah to cure you.’ She said, ‘I shall remain patient.’” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5328)
Hazrat Amir-ul-Momineenaa reminds us that in the face of anxiety and depression and our trials, the Quran teaches: “Surely in the remembrance of Allah, hearts can find comfort.”
You could hole yourself up in your home and never come out. But, think of it this way – the safest place for a rocket is in the hangar. But that is not what a rocket is built for. Why not escape the pull of this world and reach for the heavens? Our bodies and souls are made to experience and withstand these trials. They are meant to grow. So why do you let the gravity of this world hold you back?
Do you not know the gravity of the situation before us? We are at a critical moment in the course of human history. The Promised Messiahaa tells us, “This is Satan’s last battle and he will now definitely be destroyed.” (“Trial and Tribulation – Part 2”, speech delivered by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad on 28 December 1907 at Jalsa Qadian, published in The Review of Religions in September 1997, www.alislam.org/) But do you think that Satan will go down without a fight? You might think, “I can recognise Satan when I see him.” When you are in the belly of the beast, you are entirely consumed by the thing you think you can spot. And when it is everywhere, how can you spot everything? This is why Allah puts us through these trials: to rise above Satan’s limited reach.
So once the trials begin, how do we keep our senses? The Prophetsa told us exactly what four things to use to get through trials: Salat, fasting, charity, and by commanding and doing good and forbidding evil.
With salat, we appear before our Creator five times a day and let all the anxiety out. Salat is a daily reminder that Allah has it all under control. Fasting helps us re-focus our energy only on things that matter. Charity helps us to keep our compassion during our own trials, reminding us that others may have it worse than whatever we are going through. Commanding good and forbidding evil ensures that we don’t deviate from the right path.
Once you believe in Allah and accept Him as your friend rather than a demanding boss, then you find yourself on a road trip, of which Allah is the driver. You don’t know where the rest stops are, you don’t know what road work lies ahead, but you know the destination and that this will certainly be a trip to remember.
So, when you finally come to the end of all things, Allah will be well pleased with you, and you would be well pleased with Him (Surah at-Taubah, Ch.9: V.100). And when you think about that, well that – that’s not so sad.