witnessing, when can he find leisure to delight in them?
Likewise with calamities: in themselves they are afflictions and trials, and they contain the same responsibility as blessings. He is required to be patient with them, return to the Real to have them removed, and receive them with good pleasure or patience, which is restraining the soul from complaining of God to other than God.
This is the utmost ignorance of God: you complain of the Strong to the weak because of the relief you find in complaining, though you complain to one to whom complaint is of no avail. You know that nothing is in his hand and that none can remove what has descended upon you except the One who sent it down.
You know that this abode is an abode of trial. Not for a single moment is delight free of trial within it. The least of this is the Benefactor’s requiring gratitude for the blessing. What responsibility is harder upon the soul?
For this reason He, exalted is He, said, ‘Few of My servants are thankful’ [Saba’ 34:13], because they do not know blessings to be blessings for which gratitude is obligatory.
His saying, exalted is He, supports what we said: ‘In that are signs for every patient, thankful one’ [Ibrahim 14:5], concerning one traveling by sea when the wind grows strong and cold against him. For the blessing within it, gratitude is required of him.
For its severity and fear, patience is required of him. Understand and ponder God’s speech, and you will gain.
God sent it down only as a reminder to one of understanding, as He said: ‘That they might ponder
