“We found the best of our life through patience.”

Al-Bukhari quotes these words of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab at the head of a chapter in the Book of Heart-Softening Reports titled “patience in keeping away from what Allah has forbidden,” and Ahmad ibn Hanbal transmits them with a full chain. Placed there, the patience ‘Umar means is not only endurance of hardship but the daily discipline of leaving what is forbidden.