Sufism

Patience (sabr) is bearing what one dislikes without complaint

Al-Qushayri treats patience as an active, felt choice not to complain rather than a passive absence of difficulty, distinguishing patience in obedience, patience in avoiding wrongdoing, and the harder, unchosen patience under affliction.

Al-Qushayri's chapter on sabr treats patience as active rather than passive: the Sufi understanding assumes the difficulty is genuinely felt and disliked, and that patience consists in the deliberate choice not to voice complaint against God or let the hardship derail one's conduct, not in somehow failing to mind at all. He records classical masters distinguishing degrees of patience, patience in obeying God's commands, patience in avoiding what is forbidden, and patience under affliction, treating the third as hardest since it is imposed rather than chosen. The chapter connects sabr closely to trust and contentment: patience is what a person practices in the interval before understanding arrives, holding steady without yet knowing why a hardship has come. For al-Qushayri this makes sabr a discipline exercised continually across ordinary life, since some form of difficulty is always present to meet it.

Al-Risala al-Qushayriyya