So surely with hardship comes ease

Quran chronicles 1

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about needing comfort, about the verses in the Quran that bring me comfort.

For over a year, my internet feeds have been filled with struggling people. Devastated people. People enduring genocide and people haunted by watching helplessly as people endure genocide.

For the last 5 weeks, a new stream of clips has entered my feed. People devastated and struggling with the reality of a second Trump presidency.

I’m not here to play the suffering Olympics or to tell anyone to get over it. I’ve been the struggling and devastated person. I’m still the struggling and devastated person.

There are chapters and verses in the Quran that stop me in my tracks. Chapters about grief. Chapters about pain and patience.

The Prophet Muhammad was an orphan and a widower. His father died before he was born, his mother when he was six. He was a refugee, living in extreme poverty. He buried his wife Khadijah, and all but one of his children¹.

He was intimately familiar with loss.

One of my favourite chapters in the Quran is the chapter of Relief, which was revealed to the Prophet in the early days of his message while he suffered persecution and abuse at the hands of his own people.

In it, God consoles Prophet Muhammad, reminding him, gently, of the ways in which his burdens have been relieved, and reassuring him of the ease to come.

There is a refrain in this chapter where God says, “فَإِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا إِنَّ مَعَ ٱلْعُسْرِ يُسْرًۭا ”.

“So truly where there is hardship, there is also ease. Surely, with hardship comes ease” (94:5-6).

Arabic calligraphy of the verses that say, “Surely, with hardship comes ease”

I think about this repetition a lot. About the certainty it implies. There is reassurance here, but also determination.

I think about how it captures the human condition. How it doesn’t say the hardship won’t exist. How there is no promise of simplicity.

I think about the hardest times I’ve known, and how they’ve shown me things I couldn’t see before. How they’ve taken so much and given so much: people, ideas, pretenses.

I think about how I laugh the loudest after I’ve cried the hardest. How I love the most after I’ve lost the most.

I think of gritting my teeth and trying to get on with it, and how that never works for very long. I think of the power of a God that consoles. I think of the power of a human that feels, really feels, his losses.

There is a famous story of Prophet Muhammad holding his infant son Ibraheem in his arms as the baby boy dies. When the Prophet begins to cry, his companion is taken aback. They are tough men. Men of the desert. Men of a harsh climate. Sometimes children die in seventh century Arabia. Sometimes children die today.

"Tears are a mercy from God,” the Prophet explains. I cannot think of anything more true.

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And because I want to share some ease and some beauty, here is a beautiful video of a Palestinian dance troupe performing the Dabke, a traditional Palestinian and Lebanese dance, in Time Square.

@dalouna_eventsThey will never eliminate us! #dabka #dabke #resistance #dance #nyc #timesquare #bigapple #fyp #hatta #culture

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1. Prophet Muhammad had several sons that all died as infants or very young boys. He had four daughters as well that all grew to adulthood. They are: Zeinab, Ruqayya, Umm Kalthoum, and Fatima. All but Fatima died during his lifetime, and Fatima died only months after him.