What Is the Meaning of “With Hardship Comes Ease”?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

I struggle to understand this verse, “With hardship comes ease.” Does this mean hardship will never end, but there will be ease alongside it, or will the hardship come to an end, and there will be ease after the difficulty?

I have looked up answers on SeekersGuidance about hardship and ease, but I don’t quite understand it. Could you clarify and give me a detailed answer, please?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate.

Both of the meanings you mentioned are applicable to the statement “with hardship comes ease.”

The First Meaning

Accompaniment (Istishab):

“Indeed, with hardship there is ease” indicates that the ease accompanies the difficulty.

One of the interpretations of this is that the ease is granted so near after the difficulty that it is as if they overlap each other. [Zamakhshari, al-Kashshaf]

Practically, there are many times when we find ourselves in a difficulty, but we also find within ourselves an inner strength to overcome the difficulty.  [Ibid.]

The Second Meaning

Sequence (T‘aqib):

“Indeed, with hardship there is ease” indicates that after a difficulty, Allah Most High will grant ease and relief. [Ibid.]

In the Prophetic biography, there are many examples where the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace) and his companions faced great difficulties, and shortly thereafter a great victory or an immense blessing was granted to them. [Ibid.]

A good example of this is the Year of Sadness followed up by the Prophet’s Night Journey and Ascension to the Heavens.

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch teaches Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom Seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences.

He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he studied for three years in Dar al-Mustafa under some of the most outstanding scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib.

In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Quran and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Quranic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.