Hardship must be Alleviated

To understand this maxim, it is necessary to know that the word “hardship” used in it is not the same as “difficulty.” Unlike hardship, difficulty is not necessarily bad; success in life does not come without difficulty and hard work. Moral   responsibility (taklif), which is the basis of Islamic religious obligation, literally means in Arabic “imposition of a heavy burden” due to the fact that acts of worship and other religious duties require some degree of difficulty.

Hardship, as referred to in this maxim, excludes beneficial difficulty like that required for training, study, work, and worship. Islam places high value on purposeful exertion but requires the alleviation of detrimental difficulty. The preceding maxim, “harm must be removed,” emphasizes elimination; harm must be eliminated, not necessarily replaced with something else. The focus of this maxim is different; hardship must not just be eliminated; it must be replaced with something better.

“Hardship must be alleviated” requires the creation alternatives, because alternatives are the means by which alleviation takes place. In many  cases, it may not  be desirable  to eliminate  completely  a type of behavior  that  is causing hardship; it may be better to modify that behavior  or create alternatives, so that it or something better than it may be done in a manner  that is easier and more rewarding.

The Qur’an states: “It is not God’s will to cause you distress; rather, it is God’s will to make you pure.” (Qur’an, Surah Al-Ma'idah, 5:6). It says elsewhere: “God wills to make things easy for you, for human beings were created weak.”  (Qur’an,   Surah An-Nisa’, 4:28).

The Prophet (Peace be upon him) stated:  “Make things easy, and do not make them hard. Give people words of good news, and do not drive them away.”[1] He (Peace be upon him) also said: “The  essence of this religion of Islam is ease; no one goes to extremes in this religion but that  it will get the better  of him. Seek to do what is right. Try to get as close to what is right as possible, and give people good news.”[2] A third Hadith relates  that  the  Prophet  (Peace be upon him) said: “If  I command you to do something, do of it what  you are capable  of doing."[3]

For some Muslims, Islam does not seem authentic if it is not hard.  Occasionally, they adopt unnecessarily rigorous positions that push their psyches to the breaking point. Yet the Prophet  (Peace be upon him)  made it clear that Islam is a religion of ease and that suffering for the sake of suffering is not laudable  and does not please God. The Prophet  (Peace be upon him) preferred choosing the easiest way to do things; an authentic Hadith reports  that: “The Prophet  (Peace be upon him) was never given the choice between two good  things,  one of which  was easier than  the  other,  but  that  he chose the easier of them.”[4] The Prophet (Peace be upon him) said: “Certainly, the best part of your religious practice is what is easiest for you.”[5]

The difference  between  removing  harm  (the previous  maxim) and  alleviating  hardship (this  maxim)  is essentially  a  matter   of degree. As demonstrated in the maxim “harm must be removed,” Islamic law defines harm to include lesser harms. When the broad definition of harm is applied to lesser harms, the two maxims tend to overlap.  Taken together, they testify to Islam’s commitment to reasonable norms that are free of harm and filled with benefit as much as possible.

The following examples illustrate how the alleviation of hardship and the removal of (lesser and greater) harm may overlap. The illustrations pertain to the allowances Islam makes for Muslims to break the obligatory fast of Ramadan. Muslims are not required  to fast when traveling, although in some cases fasting during  travel is easy; in such  cases, the  law’s alleviation  of hardship is extremely broad   and  takes  in  even  the  most  minimal  forms  of  difficulty. Islam removed  the obligation of fasting from people who lack the capacity  to  fast  due  to  infirmity,  pregnancy,  and  similar  reasons.

In safer cases, the license to break  the fast under  these conditions constitutes  an alleviation  of hardship; in more serious ones, it constitutes  the removal  of (lesser or greater)  harm,  depending  on the degree  of severity.  In the following case, allowance to break the fast was clearly an instance of removing greater harm. 

When  one of the Prophet’s  Companions would  attempt to fast the month  of Ramadan, he would  fall unconscious  and  froth  at the mouth;  the Prophet  exempted  him altogether from fasting and directed  him to feed one poor person for each day of the fast.

Islamic  law  instituted  numerous  other   religious  licenses  to lighten  hardship; the  principles  underlying  each  of them  demonstrates  the  pliability  of the  law and  the  underlying  principle  that hardship for  its own  sake  is undesirable. In extreme  cold  or  the absence  of water,  Muslims  are  allowed  to purify  themselves  ritually by contact  with clean earth (tayammum).

Travelers are allowed to  combine  prayers,  and  the  Prophet  gave  special  permission  to perform  the sunset  and  night  prayers  together  on rainy  nights  or when  the  streets  are  muddy  following  rains,  although ordinarily each prayer must be performed at separate  times. The Prophet (Peace be upon him) gave two of his Companions special permission to wear silk (although silk is otherwise forbidden for men) in order to alleviate skin irritations. 

Likewise, Islamic law gave Muslim men permission to fill dental cavities with gold (although men are not allowed to wear it) to alleviate the hardship of using other materials, which, at that time, did not make good fillings.

For centuries, prayer times were determined by the movements of the sun and the indications in the sky of dusk, night, and dawn. Today, urban areas are lit at night and buildings often block out the sky. Traditional methods of determining prayer times are no longer easy; in some cases, they have become impossible. To alleviate this hardship, most Muslims today rely on prayer timetables. When flying, it is widely regarded as permissible to pray in one’s seat by making minimal gestures indicative of prayer and without needing to face toward Mecca. Given the length of urban commutes in large cities, some scholars allow commuters to combine prayers, although the distances they drive may fall short of the definition of travel in Islamic law.

Finally, the maxim “hardship must be alleviated” sets a critically important standard for new or lapsed Muslims; only the most basic obligations should be expected of them, and the transition should be gradual and undemanding.