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wa-ʾidhā ʾanʿamnā ʿalā l-ʾinsāni ʾaʿraḍa wa-naʾā bi-jānibihī wa-ʾidhā massahu sh-sharru fa-dhū duʿāʾin ʿarīḍin
When We bless man, he is disregardful and turns aside; but when an ill befalls him, he makes protracted supplications.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Fussilat - Verse 51
51. And when We show favor unto man, he withdraws and turns away, but when evil touches him he has recourse to long supplications.
Welfare and hardship are the best means of assaying man’s characters and his spiritual blights. The blessed Verse expresses the states of such people at the time of fortune and misfortune in this mundane world and makes mention of their forgetfulness at the time of enjoying bounties and his restlessness at the time of afflictions. The blessed Verse is saying that when God Almighty provides man with bounties, he turns away arrogantly from God, but when he is touched by the slightest adversity, he invokes God Almighty many a time to remove it.
The Arabic word na’ is taken from na’y which literally indicates going away and when it is collocated with:
it connotes arrogance and vanity, since the arrogant turn away their faces and go away with indifference. The word:
is the opposite of tawil (“long”). Both are employed in the Arabic tongue to connote multiplicity. Such faithless and godless person suffers from such miserable states of mind at all times. When he is granted bounties, he becomes avaricious, arrogant, and forgetful and when such bounties turn away from him, he loses his heart and beseeches God Almighty to bestow them upon him once more. Au contraire, men of truth and the true followers of Prophetic teachings are so tolerant and rich inwardly that neither bounties nor afflictions may make them lose their heart. The most profitable transactions and the greatest of remunerations may not keep them from remembrance of God.
They are well acquainted with vicissitudes of life and are aware that unfavorable circumstances serve as reawakening and favorable states of affairs are Divine trials. Adversities are at times the consequences of man’s neglect and bounties at times urge God’s servants to express their gratitude. The most significant signs of belief in God Almighty include magnanimity, i.e. greatness of spirit, broadmindedness, tolerance, and preparedness to confront hardships, vicissitudes, and struggling against the unfavorable states of mind resulting from availability of bounties.
The Commander of the Faithful, Imam ‘Ali (as) in teaching his companions certain invocations says:
“We invoke God Almighty to help us be so tolerant that no bounty may make us arrogant and vain and no aim may impede us from obeying Divine Commands, and may not regret nor grieve upon the hour of death.” 4
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