Patience · a Light

Patience in Arabic is a word about restraint

Sabr is usually translated as patience, which suggests sitting still and letting time pass. The root s b r means to bind, to hold something in place, to keep it from going where it wants to go. The same root names a bitter plant and supplies the verb for holding a person to a commitment. So sabr sits closer to self restraint under pressure than to endurance: keeping the tongue off complaint, the body at its task, the hand from retaliation. The Qur'an says the patient will be given their reward without reckoning. The word describes somebody doing something difficult, not somebody waiting for it to be over.

Root s b r, to bind and restrain

Source · Qur'an 39:10