If in single-handed combat one smiles at an awesome enemy, his enmity will be changed  to conciliatoriness; his hostility will become a mere joke, will shrink and disappear. If one confronts misfortune with reliance on God, the result will be similar.

T h i r d  M a t t e r : Each age has particular characteristics.16  In this age of

neglect  misfortune  has  changed its form. In certain ages  and for certain persons, misfortune is not in reality misfortune, but rather a divine favour. Since I consider those afflicted with illness in the present age to be fortunate – on condition that their illness does not affect their religion – it does not occur to me to oppose illness and misfortune, nor to  take pity on the afflicted. Whenever I encounter some afflicted youth, I find that he is more concerned with his religious duties and the hereafter than are his peers. From this I deduce that illness does not constitute a misfortune for such people, but rather a bounty from God. It is true that illness causes him distress in his brief, transient and worldly life, but it is beneficial for  his eternal life. It is to be regarded as a kind of worship. If he were healthy he would be unable to maintain the state  he  enjoyed  while  sick  and  would  fall  into  dissipation,  as  a  result  of  the impetuousness of youth and the dissipated nature of the age.

Conclusion

God Almighty, in order to display His infinite power and unlimited mercy, has made  inherent in man infinite impotence and unlimited want. Further, in order to display the  endless embroideries of His names, He has created man like a machine capable  of  receiving  unlimited  varieties  of  pain,  as  well  as  infinite  varieties  of pleasure. Within that human machine are hundreds of instruments, each of which has different pains and pleasures, different duties and rewards. Simply, all of the divine names manifested in the macroanthropos that is the world also have manifestations in the  microcosm  that  is  man.  Beneficial  matters  like  good  health,  well-being,  and pleasures cause man to offer thanks  and  prompt the human machine to perform its functions in many respects, and thus man becomes like a factory producing thanks.

16 See, Bayhaqi, Shu’ab al-Iman, iv, 263; Khatib al-Baghdadi, al-Jami‘ li-Akhlaq al-Rawi wa

Adab al-Sami, i, 212, 407.