Our Lord Does Not Prevent Anything From His Servant in This World Except that He Gives Him What is Better Than it

 

الحمد لله رب العالمين، وصلى الله وسلم على نبينا محمد وعلى آله وأصحابه أجمعين، أما بعد

Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyyah (rahimahullaah) said:

 

Vacate your mind for concern over that which you have been commanded with, and do not preoccupy it with that which is guaranteed for you. For indeed; sustenance and duration of life are two guaranteed associates, thus – as long as the duration of life remains; sustenance shall be forthcoming.

Yet if He, due to His Wisdom – obstructs from you a path from His paths, He opens for you by way of His Mercy a path of greater benefit to you than it.

Observe then; the state of the fetus, there comes to it its nourishment – and it is by way of blood – through a singular passage: and it is the umbilicus.

So when it exits from the stomach of the mother and that passage is severed; two passageways are opened for him, as well as being of greater effectuation for him, in them both is sustenance better and tastier than the first: pure palatable milk.

So once the term for breastfeeding is complete, and the two passageways are severed due to weaning; four paths are opened – more complete than it: two foodstuffs and two beverages.

The two foodstuffs being: by way of the animals and the vegetation, and the two beverages being: by way of the waters and the milk products – as well as that which can be supplemented to them both from wholesome produce and gratifying delights.

So once he dies; these four paths are severed from him.

However; He, The Glorified, opens for him – if he is blissful – eight paths: and they are the eight gates of Paradise,[1] he enters through whichever one he wishes.

As such; The Lord, The Glorified, does not prevent anything from His believing servant from the world except that He gives him that which is better than it and more beneficial for him.

Yet that is not for other than the believer, for indeed He prevents him from the lowest contemptible share, and is not pleased with that for him – in order to give him the highest prized share. Whilst the servant – due to his ignorance of his own welfare and his ignorance of the Generosity of his Lord and His Wisdom and His Kindness; does not know of the disparity between that which he has been prevented from and that which has been preserved for him.

Instead he is infatuated with love of the temporal, even if it be lowly, along with the scant desire for the life to come, even if it be highly elevated.

If the servant was to be just with his Lord, and how can that be for him! He would know that His Bounty upon him through that which He has prohibited him from of worldliness and its delights and its bliss: is greater than His Bounty upon him in that which He has granted him from that.

So He did not prevent him except to give him, and He did not place affliction upon him except to pardon him, and He did not test him except to purify him, and He did not cause him to die except to bring him back to life, and He does not cause him to exit this abode except for him to ready himself from it in order to arrive at Him, and in order to traverse the path which leads to Him, since:

 جَعَلَ اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ خِلْفَةً لِمَنْ أَرَادَ أَنْ يَذَّكَّرَ أَوْ أَرَادَ شُكُورًا

((He has made the night and the day in succession for whoever wishes to remember or wishes to show gratitude.)) (Al-Furqaan: 62)

فَأَبَى الظَّالِمُونَ إَلاَّ كُفُورًا

((But the wrongdoers refuse [anything] except disbelief.)) (Al-Israa: 99)

(Taken from: Al-Fawaa-id p.82-83)

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[1] Paradise has eight gates as is mentioned in a hadeeth in which the Prophet (sallallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) said: ((In Paradise there are eight gates, from them is a gate called Ar-Rayyaan, none shall enter it except those that fast.)) Reported by Al-Bukhaaree (no.1896) and Muslim (no.1152).