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EFFECTIVE SOLACE FOR THOSE SUFFERING FROM THE MISFORTUNE OF
IMPRISONMENT
I shall
offer in three “Points” an effective solace for those who
are suffering from the misfortune of imprisonment, and for those
who kindly and faithfully help them and supervise their food,
which comes from outside.
First
point: Each
day spent in prison may gain as much reward as ten days’
worship does. With respect to their fruits, it may change those
transient hours into enduring hours, and through a few years’
punishment may be the means to be saved from millions of years
of eternal imprisonment. A believing prisoner can gain this most
significant and valuable advantage by performing the five
prescribed prayers, repenting and asking God’s forgiveness for
the sins that were the cause of his imprisonment, and be
thankful to God in patience. Prison is, in reality, an obstacle
to certain sins; it prevents them.
Second
point: As the
disappearance of pleasure causes pain, so also does the
disappearance of pain give pleasure. Indeed, on thinking of past
happy, enjoyable days, everyone feels a pang of regret and
longing, and utters a sigh of grief. Recalling calamitous,
painful days of the past, one feels some sort of pleasure
because they are gone, and says, “All praise and thanks be to
God, that calamity has passed leaving its reward.” He breathes
a sigh of relief. Clearly, an hour’s temporary pain leaves
behind an immaterial pleasure in the spirit, while an hour’s
pleasure leaves a pain.
This is
the reality and past hours of misfortunes together with their
pains have disappeared, and the imagined distress of the future
has not yet come. Since pain does not come from nothing, it is
foolish-in the same way as continually eating and drinking today
because of the probability of being hungry and thirsty in
several days’ time-to be thinking now of past and future
pains. They are pains which simply do not exist. It is foolish
to show impatience, and ignoring one’s faulty self, to moon as
though complaining about God. So long as the power of patience
is not wasted for the past and future, and is spent to bear the
present distress, it suffices for it, and the distress decreases
tenfold.
Let this
not be understood as complaining. This is my third period of
imprisonment. The Divine Favor pointed this out to me in a few
days of material and spiritual afflictions and illnesses, the
like of which I had never before experienced in my life.
Particularly the despair and distress coming from my being
unable to serve the Qur’an crushed me. I then accepted my
distressing illness and imprisonment. Since it is great profit
for a poor man like me who waits at the door of the grave to
turn an hour (which he might have spent in heedlessness
otherwise), into ten hours’ worth of worship, I thanked God.
Third
point: There
is great reward in compassionately attending prisoners, in
providing for them the food they need, and in soothing their
spiritual wounds with consolation. Also, serving them with food
(which comes from outside the prison) is the cause of spiritual
reward equivalent to giving that food as alms, and this reward
is added to the record of the good deeds of those, outside, who
take part in this, together with the guards concerned. If the
miserable prisoner is old or ill or poor or without support or
protection, then the reward of such alms-giving multiplies.
However,
in order to gain this valuable benefit, one should perform the
daily prescribed prayers, so that such service is done for God’s
sake. Also, one should hasten to the help of prisoners with
sincerity, compassion and cheerfulness, and in such manner as
not to make them feel obliged.
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Last Updated on November 14, 2000
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