Resilience and forbearance lead to success

Excerpt from Ibrahim Dewla’s speeches and notes.

Yusuf Kandhlawi (rah) said, “Beginning of the true path is riddled with difficulties, but its final ending is success.”

Where does the path of truth begin? It starts with difficulties. In the beginning, difficulties will welcome you, obstacles will appear, opposition will arise, and even enmities will exist.

So Allah will initially test us with hardships, and then He will bestow His rewards. That’s why we must stay hopeful in every situation — even when Allah places us in difficult circumstances, there are His blessings behind them. Allah’s rewards come through the path of hardship, just as Paradise is achieved through enduring difficulties.

Narrated Abu Huraira: the Prophet (saw) said, “The (Hell) Fire is surrounded by all kinds of desires and passions, while Paradise is surrounded by all kinds of disliked undesirable things.”
(Bukhari 6487)

A person who follows the path of desires will end up in Hell, while a person who follows the path of resilience and forbearance will enter Paradise.