and I will remember you. Give thanks to Me and do not be ungrateful” [al-Baqarah 2:152]. When He commanded remembrance and gratitude, He commanded them to seek help in this through patience and prayer, and told them, “God is with the patient,” in prayer and in every hardship pleasing to God that He has imposed upon His servants. Patience is among the stations conditioned by difficulties, disagreeable things, and spiritual and sensory hardships.
He placed patience here for the reason we have mentioned and to correspond to His words, “Give thanks to Me and do not be ungrateful.” Gratitude is among the stations conditioned by blessings and love. Affliction has no place in gratitude, and patience has no place amid blessings, contrary to what those who do not know the realities of things suppose.
Prayer here, and patience in it, which is constancy, steadfastness, and holding oneself to it, affect remembrance and gratitude. Patience here is His saying, “Command your family to pray and persevere in it” [Ta Ha 20:132]. This is why He mentioned patience with prayer. Just as patience in remembrance and gratitude affects remembrance and gratitude, so it affects prayer in the same way. Prayer affects remembrance and gratitude through patience in it and also through being prayer.
(Remembrance through the Quran in Prayer)
Prayer is intimate converse between God and His servant. When the servant converses intimately with his Lord, the most fitting speech for that converse is His own speech, by which He prescribed that the servant converse with Him, namely reciting
Notes
Translator’s note TN2289-1: The distinction concerns the particular condition that defines each station. Patience here is steadfastness under hardship, and gratitude responds to blessings. Prayer is then considered as an aid to both remembrance and gratitude.
