Persistence against adversity is called "Patience" and if practiced for God's sake, it will lead to the enhancement of divine piety and can be considered a virtue. Imam Ali (AS) in Nahj al-BalÄghah introduces the "Virtue of Patience" as the head, boss and the controlling center of man's faith: "Patience for faith is like the head for the body" (Nahj al-BalÄghah, Hikmat 2, P. 640). Ethicists believe that patience is the leading quality for all other ethical virtues, but among the public it has been limited to the situation in which the person endures the hardships and is satisfied with the status quo.
This article investigates the literal, ethical and conventional meanings of patience from the time of Imam Ali up to the present, using a comprehensive approach in two fields of Islamic traditions and bibliography and by referring to four commentaries of Nahj al-BalÄghah.
The term patience in Nahj al-BalÄghah, besides keeping its literal and technical meaning, has made a semantic relation with many of the religious and ethical concepts. Based on this fact, the present essay tries to explain and analyze the Islamic traditions in which this term has been used and then using the commentaries of Nahj al-BalÄghah, indicates the relationship between patience and other concepts like faith, piety, certainty and ⦠.
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