Sabr (Patience) in Islam: Its Types, Virtues, and Rewards

A look at sabr in Islamic teaching, drawn from the Quran and authentic hadith.

Few words appear as often in the Quran as sabr, patience. Scholars who have counted its occurrences across the Quran, including related forms of the word, put the figure at close to a hundred instances – a frequency that itself tells a reader something about how central the concept is to the entire Quranic ethical framework, rather than being one virtue among many listed in passing.

An Uncounted Reward

Surah az-Zumar (39:10) contains what scholars regard as one of the most striking promises in the whole Quran on this subject: “Indeed, the patient will be given their reward without account” – meaning without the normal measuring or ceiling applied to reward for other deeds. Classical exegetes such as Ibn Kathir noted that no other virtue in the Quran receives quite this unqualified a promise, which is part of why sabr is treated by scholars not as a passive trait to be endured but as an act of worship in its own right, deserving of a reward category unlike any other.

The Three Categories Scholars Divide It Into

Classical scholarship, most notably Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah in his book “Uddat al-Sabirin,” divides sabr into three distinct categories. The first is patience in obedience to Allah – the discipline required to maintain prayer, fasting, and other acts of worship consistently, even when motivation is low. The second is patience in refraining from what Allah has forbidden – resisting a desire or temptation even when it is fully within one’s power to indulge it. The third, and the one most people mean when they use the word in everyday speech, is patience in the face of what Allah has decreed – illness, loss, poverty, or any hardship that arrives without the person having chosen it. Ibn Qayyim argued that the first two categories are, in a sense, harder to sustain than the third, since they require patience exercised by active choice, repeated daily, rather than patience forced by a single circumstance.

The Prophet’s ﷺ Own Example of Grief

A hadith recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari describes the death of the Prophet’s ﷺ own infant son, Ibrahim, and his visible tears at the boy’s bedside. When a companion, Abdur Rahman ibn Awf, asked him about it – since weeping might seem to contradict patience – the Prophet ﷺ answered that this was mercy, and that the eye sheds tears and the heart grieves, but a believer says only what pleases Allah. This hadith is used consistently by scholars to correct a common misunderstanding: sabr does not mean suppressing grief or presenting a stoic face, but continuing to submit to Allah’s decree and refraining from despair or complaint, even while genuinely and visibly mourning.

The Woman at the Grave: Patience at the First Shock

Another well-known hadith, recorded in both Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, describes the Prophet ﷺ passing a woman weeping loudly at a grave and telling her to fear Allah and be patient. Not recognizing him, she snapped back that he had no idea what had befallen her, and continued weeping. When she was later told it had been the Prophet ﷺ himself, she rushed to his door to apologize, no guards standing between her and his home to stop her. His reply became one of the most quoted definitions of sabr in the entire hadith literature: “Patience is only at the first strike of a calamity” – meaning true sabr is the restraint shown in the very first moment of shock and grief, not the calm that naturally settles in once time has already done its work.

Sabr and Prayer as a Single Combined Support

Surah al-Baqarah instructs believers to “seek help through patience and prayer” (2:153), joining the two as a single combined resource rather than two separate tools – a pairing scholars have read as significant in its own right, since prayer itself is described elsewhere in the same surah as something “heavy except for the humbly submissive” (2:45), suggesting that sustaining regular prayer is itself an exercise in the same patience the verse recommends turning to for help.

Why Complaint to Allah Is Not Considered a Breach of Sabr

Scholars draw a careful distinction here that is often missed: sabr does not require silence about one’s suffering, only that the complaint be directed toward Allah rather than voiced as protest against His decree. The Quran itself preserves the example of the Prophet Yaqub (AS), who upon losing his son Yusuf said plainly, “I only complain of my suffering and my grief to Allah” (Surah Yusuf, 12:86), and is still described in the very next verses as one who did not despair of Allah’s mercy. This distinction – complaining to Allah rather than about Him – is what scholars point to when explaining that grief, tears, and even honest words of pain are compatible with sabr, so long as they stop short of resentment or rejection of Allah’s decree.

Ayyub (AS): Patience Through Prolonged Illness

Alongside Yaqub (AS), the Quran holds up Ayyub (AS), Job, as its central example of patience through prolonged physical suffering rather than sudden loss. Surah al-Anbiya describes him calling out to his Lord, afflicted by hardship, and Allah answering him, removing what troubled him and restoring to him his family, doubled in number, as a mercy from Himself and a reminder for those who worship (21:83-84). Classical exegesis, drawing on accounts preserved by early commentators, describes his affliction as stretching over many years, during which he continued praising Allah rather than voicing complaint against Him, and note that when he finally does call out to Allah, it is phrased not as protest but as an acknowledgment that harm has touched him and that Allah is the most merciful of the merciful – the same distinction found in Yaqub’s (AS) story, directed to Allah rather than against Him. The Prophet ﷺ is separately reported to have described Ayyub (AS) as an example specifically of gratitude sustained through illness, since even after his restoration he continued the same devotion he had shown throughout the years of hardship, treated by scholars as proof that his patience had never actually been in doubt even during the years his suffering continued unresolved.

Readers interested in this subject may also want to read about The Etiquette of Seeking Knowledge in Islam. Readers wanting to verify the primary sources directly can consult Sunnah.com for the full Quranic text and hadith references.