-III-

The Affliction of Ayyub

In the Name of God. the Merciful, the Compassionate.

When he called upon his Sustainer saying: "Verily hann has afflicted me, and You are the Most Merciful of the Merciful."¹

The supplication of Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace), the champion of patience, is both well-tested and effective. Drawing on the verse, we should say in our supplication,

О my Sustainer! Indeed harm has afflicted me, and You are the Most Merciful of the Merciful. The gist of the well-known story of Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace) is as follows:

While afflicted with numerous wounds and sores for a long time, he recalled the great recompense to be had for his sickness, and endured it with utmost patience. But later, when the worms generated by his wounds penetrated to his heart and his tongue, which were the organ for the remembrance and knowledge of God, he feared that his duty of worship would suffer, and so he said in supplication not for the sake of his own comfort, but for the sake of his worship of God:

"O Lord! Harm has afflicted me; my remem­brance of You with my tongue and my worship of You with my heart will suffer." God Almighty then accepted this pure sincere, disinterested and devout supplication in the most miraculous fashion. He granted to Hazrat Ayyub perfect good health and made manifest in him all kinds of com­passion. This Flash contains Five Points.

FIRST POINT: Corresponding to the outer wounds and sicknesses of Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace), we have inner sicknesses of the spirit and heart. If our inner being is turned out­ward, and our outer being turned inward, we will apear more wounded and diseased than Hazrat Ayyub. For each sin that we commit and each doubt that enters our mind, inflicts wounds on our heart and our spirit.

The wounds of Hazrat Ayyub (Upon whom be peace) were of such a nature as to threaten his brief worldly life. But our inner wounds threaten our infinitely long life everlasting. We need the supplication of Hazrat Ayyub thousands of times more than he did himself. Just as the worms that arose from his wounds penetrated to his heart and tongue, so too the wounds that sin inflicts upon us and the temptations and doubts that arise from those wounds will —may God protect us!— pene­trate our inner heart, the seat of faith, and thus wound faith. Penetrating too the spiritual joy of the tongue, the proclaimer of faith, they cause it to shun in revulsion the remembrance of God, and reduce it to silence.

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1.Qur'an. 21:83.