Ibn Ajiba's The Book of Ascension to the Essential Truths of Sufism
Patience (sabr) is to keep the heart steady before the order of the Lord. For the generality, this means keeping it steady when it is hard to accomplish acts of obedience or avoid transgressions. For the elect, it means to keep the individual self steady in its devotions and spiritual efforts, and to bear the dangers of the way with a heart vigilant in its concentration on God and its search for the veils to be raised. For the elect of the elect, it means keeping the spirit and soul concentrated in the contemplative and essential vision: ongoing reflection and sustained concentration.
Variations of the root s-b-r are found just over 100 times in the Quran and include the divine name al-Sabur, the Infinitely Patient.
In his [Ibn Ajiba’s] commentary on Q. 2:45-46, “Seek help through patience and prayer- and truly this is hard except for the humble, those who know they will meet their Lord and that unto Him they are returning”—he wrote:
O you who long to enter the divine presence, be humble and lowly before God’s saints and drink deeply of patience that you might be brought thence. As a poet has said:
Be humble toward the One you love—love is never easy! But if the Beloved be content with you, you will surely be united.
And if the love of power and worldly rank is what is keeping you from this, then seek help through patience and prayer, for patience is the basis of all success, and prayer repels lewdness and iniquity. Keep knocking on this door until you enter among the beloved friends.
Constancy in the prayer is hard except for those who approach it with the sincere desire to commune with God most high, to realize the encounter of contemplation and vision, and to return to their guardian lord at every moment. Then will the prayer be one of the things in which they find the coolness of their eyes. And with God is all success, and He is the guide to the fairest of paths.
In his words “the coolness of their eyes” is a reference to the famous saying of the Prophet Muhammad, “[Those things] made loveable to me in this world are women and fragrances, and the coolness of my eye has been placed in the prayer.” (Nasa’i and Ahmad).
Source: Al-Bahr al-Madid, vol. 1, p. 102.