REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, By: Asma Nadia
How can patience become negative? Is not that the Quran commands?
Is there any negative patience?
I know, there is no bad commands in the Quran, but the problem is the patience that we know today is human patience generally far from the Quran version.
Why we are always hit by flood, why we cannot cope the disaster and why we are left behind by other countries? The answer is because we have the negative patience. We are mistakenly to translate the word of patience.
The first mistake, we always think that the patience is waiting. We always wait until something is broken then repaired. We always wait until a government official working period runs out, even though he works very badly. We always wait the money comes as we know someone's fortune are not going anywhere. In the other hand, Prophet Muhammad pointed out that the patience understood the time. There is time to wait, time to be pro-active, time to act first. Patience is an endurance to adjust someone's attitude with the right time. Someone remains silent when he must be silent at the time, though he is angry. Someone keeps moving when he has to move at the time, though he is sleepy.
The second mistake, we always compare patience with sincerity. We must patience despite the traffic jam. We must patience though someone's position is not running properly. We must patience despite continuous floods. We keep patience though the mosque is placed on the basement floor in a luxury mall.
Prophet as a great person who understood the concept of patience said that we should dare to demand our rights, dare to act and not such simply to accept the fate. When he and his friends were tortured in Makkah, they were silent not because of fear or keep patience, but they understood that it was not the right time to take the fight. But when the Prophet was forced to carry out an idolatrous worship, he balked. So, the patience means someone can accept the situation with the necessity.
The third mistake, we assume that the patience is a silence. You keep silence though banned to wear headscarf. You keep silence though many television shows are misleading our children. You keep silence though Muslims are treated unfairly. In fact, the Prophet forbid Muslims from sin (munkar) through our hands, verbal, also by heart, and the silence are not recommended by Prophet Muhammad.
The fourth mistake, we consider that a patient person must not be angry and no fighting. Is it true?
Prophet Muhammad really understood the concept of patience, but he could angry when he saw the sinners, went into the fire and lead the fire. People who fight for their rights physically do not mean that people cannot be patience. People who are angry do not mean they cannot be patience. Citizens who are protesting against government that is not doing its duties properly do not mean that they are citizens who cannot be patience, but citizens who dare to fight for their rights. Muslims who are demanding the mosque to be relocated to strategic places in a mall and various public facilities are not people who cannot be patience, but people who truly understand their rights.
Muslim women who are debating their bosses for refusing forced to take off their headscarves do not mean that they were impatience; instead they truly understand their rights.
Patience is endurance.
Patient people have the ability to hold their anger, but do not hesitate to act when needed. They act and angry professionally, not emotionally. Patient people are not responsive people. They have full consideration and not reactive.
People who keep patience will act proportionally and know how to act in many conditions. Although the anger is very high but not in the right condition, they are able to withstand and being proportional. They know when to ask their rights and when to let it go.
People who keep patients are professional servants. Despite sleepy condition, he will force himself to wake up when prayer time comes. If Muslims understand this patience actually, the future of our nation will be better off.
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