The 365 · Verses · Day 157 · Patience
Patience is not self-effort. It is divine grant. Petition for it.
This day is still being reviewed. Its wording, transliterations, and references are being checked before it is final, so please take care with transliterations until then.
وَٱصْبِرْ وَمَا صَبْرُكَ إِلَّا بِٱللَّهِ ۚ وَلَا تَحْزَنْ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا تَكُ فِى ضَيْقٍ مِّمَّا يَمْكُرُونَ
“So [Prophet] be steadfast: your steadfastness comes only from God. Do not grieve over them; do not be distressed by their scheming. (Abdel Haleem)”
Quran 16:127 Read 16:127 with tafsir
Svenska: Bär allt med tålamod men [minns att du bara får] kraft att visa tålamod från Gud. Och var inte bedrövad för [förnekarnas] skull och känn dig inte beklamd på grund av den ohederlighet de visar [i sina tvister med dig]. (Knut Bernström)
The story
Ibn Kathīr: the verse closes Sūrat an-Naḥl with three commands to the Prophet ﷺ: be patient + do not grieve + do not be distressed. The verse pairs the command with the source: the Prophet's ﷺ patience is itself by Allah, not by his own self-effort. The Companions absorbed this: when patience was difficult, they prayed for it, and Allah granted.
In the language
Mā ṣabruka illā bi-llāh: literal translation 'there is no patience for you except by Allah.' The structural negation-affirmation pattern: there is no other source. The phrase appears verbatim only here in the Quran; its grammatical structure is severe.
Why this verse
Q 16:127 names the structural source of patience: wa-mā ṣabruka illā bi-llāh (your patience is only by Allah). The verse converts patience from a self-generated quality to a divine-granted capacity. The believer who attempts patience by self-effort exhausts; the believer who recognizes patience as divine-grant petitions Allah for it and receives it.
Bring it into today
When difficulty exhausts patience-capacity, do not double down on self-effort. The verse's structural redirect: petition Allah for patience. 'Allāhumma aʿṭinī ṣabr.' The petition is itself a form of ṣabr (humility-in-need); the granted-patience comes by Allah, not by you.
A reflection to carry
Q 16:127 names patience as divine-granted, not self-generated. The verse redirects the believer's strategy: when patience-capacity is exhausted, do not exhaust further; petition Allah. The petition itself is part of the structural cure.
Read the longer reflection
The classical scholars (Ibn al-Qayyim's ʿUddat aṣ-Ṣābirīn, al-Ghazālī's Iḥyāʾ Book of Patience and Gratitude) wrote at length on this verse's implication for ṣabr-strategy. Self-effort patience is finite and exhausting; divine-granted patience is unlimited and renewable. The believer's structural task: petition Allah continuously for patience, especially in extended difficulty. The petition is the conduit; the patience flows from Allah through the conduit.
Sources: Ibn Kathir. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
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