The Ninety-Nine Names · the 99th name
الصَّبُور
As-Sabur
The Most Patient
- The rootص ب ر
- From the rootsabara: to be patient, to restrain oneself, to hold steady under what is hard
The essay
Sabr is not endurance because there is no alternative; it is restraint by choice, holding a position that could be abandoned. In Him the Name means He does not hasten: not from weakness, since His power is immediate, and not from indifference, since nothing escapes Him, but because the term is appointed and He keeps it. If He took people to task for what they have earned, the verse says, He would not leave a single creature on the ground.
In the Qur'an
وَلَوۡ يُؤَاخِذُ ٱللَّهُ ٱلنَّاسَ بِمَا كَسَبُواْ مَا تَرَكَ عَلَىٰ ظَهۡرِهَا مِن دَآبَّةٖ وَلَٰكِن يُؤَخِّرُهُمۡ إِلَىٰٓ أَجَلٖ مُّسَمّٗىۖ
Were Allah to take people to task for what they have earned, He would not leave a single creature on the face of the earth; but He defers them to an appointed term.
from the enumeration · the verse carries the meaning
What it asks of you
His patience with you has a term and is not indifference. Use the part of it you are standing in.
Read beside it
The words
A story