The Principle of Patience: Edition 2
About this ebook
The treatise opens from the broad Islamic principle that the believer’s affair is always good: gratitude is required when blessings are given, and patience is required when hardship occurs. From this starting point, Ibn Taymiyyah explains that religion returns, in a profound sense, to patience and gratitude. Patience is required in performing acts of obedience, in refraining from sin, and in bearing afflictions that come without one’s choice. These distinctions give the work its structure and practical force.
A major part of the treatise concerns harm caused by other people. Ibn Taymiyyah recognises that this form of trial is especially difficult because it touches the self, wealth, honour, and the instinct to retaliate. He does not dismiss the pain of injustice, nor does he reduce patience to passivity. Instead, he examines the inner calculations of the soul: anger, revenge, humiliation, self-blame, repentance, pardon, and the hope of reward from Allah.
The work is particularly striking in its treatment of forgiveness. Ibn Taymiyyah argues that pardoning others can become a cause of honour, freedom of heart, divine forgiveness, and moral strength. Retaliation, by contrast, can consume time, divide the heart, increase enmity, and lead a person beyond the limits of justice. The treatise therefore speaks not only to private spirituality, but also to the ethics of conflict, injury, and self-command.
The translator’s preface adds an important biographical frame. Ibn Taymiyyah’s words on patience are read against the background of his own imprisonments, public opposition, and refusal to take revenge when power shifted in his favour. This gives the treatise a particular seriousness. It is not a theoretical discussion by a detached moralist; it is a text whose themes were tested in the author’s life.
This edition will benefit readers interested in Islamic spirituality, tazkiyah, classical ethical writing, and the writings of Ibn Taymiyyah. It is also suitable for Islamic study circles and library collections seeking short primary texts that combine doctrinal clarity with practical moral instruction.
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About the author
Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn 'Abd al-Halim ibn 'Abd al-Salam al-Harrani, better known as Ibn Taymiyyah, was among the most prominent Muslim scholars of the medieval Islamic world. Born in 661 AH and raised in a scholarly environment, he became known for his wide command of the Islamic sciences, his independent legal reasoning, and his intense engagement with the religious questions of his time.
Ibn Taymiyyah’s work drew deeply upon the Qur'an, the Sunnah, and the transmitted understanding of the early generations. His writings address matters of creed, law, worship, spiritual conduct, social life, sectarian dispute, and the relationship between knowledge and action. He was not only a jurist and theologian, but also a moral teacher whose writings frequently connect doctrinal clarity with inward discipline.
His life was marked by controversy and repeated imprisonment. According to the translator’s preface to this work, Ibn Taymiyyah was imprisoned several times across the final decades of his life, and his final days were spent in confinement. Yet these trials did not produce bitterness in him. Reports from his students and contemporaries describe a man of unusual composure, forgiveness, and inward contentment. He is remembered for pardoning opponents when he had the ability to seek retaliation, and for viewing imprisonment itself as a place of worship, reflection, and nearness to Allah.
The Principle of Patience belongs to this moral and spiritual dimension of his legacy. Though brief, it reflects concerns that recur throughout his writings: the relationship between divine decree and human response, the purification of the soul, the dangers of revenge, the honour found in pardon, and the believer’s need to meet hardship with faith, repentance, and gratitude.
