Ṣabr

Sabr is the capacity to hold firm — in obedience, from disobedience, and through affliction — when every impulse of the lower self is pulling in the opposite direction. Al-Ghazali describes it as a battle between two inner armies: the forces of divine guidance (aql and iman) and the forces of appetite (hawa and nafs). Patience is the victory of the first over the second. He categorizes it into three domains: sabr in performing acts of obedience when they feel burdensome; sabr from acts of disobedience when they feel attractive; and sabr with divine decrees when they feel devastating. All three are obligatory, but the third — patient acceptance of what God has decreed — is the most spiritually exalted and the most difficult to sustain.

As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Ghazali and the scholars of his school.