The Trial of Faith: Doubt and Trust
The whole Abrahamic experience unveils the essential
dimension of faith in the One. Abraham, who is already very old
and has only recently been blessed with a child, must undergo the
trial of separation and abandonment, which will take Hagar and their
child, Ishmael, very close to death. His faith is trust in God:
he hears God's command - as does Hagar - and he answers it despite
his suffering, never ceasing to invoke God and rely on Him. Hagar
questioned Abraham about the reasons for such behaviour; finding
it was God's command, she willingly submitted to it. She asked,
then trusted, then accepted, and by doing so she traced the steps
of the profound "active acceptance"
of God's will: to question with one's mind, to understand with one's
intelligence, and to submit with one's heart. In
the course of those trials, beyond his human grief and in fact through
the very nature of that grief, Abraham develops a relationship with
God based on faithfulness, reconciliation, peace, and trust. God
tries him but is always speaking to him, inspiring him and strewing
his path with signs that calm and reassure him.
Indeed, trials of faith are never tragic in Islamic
tradition. All the messengers, like Abraham, experienced the trial
of faith and all have been, in the same manner, protected from themselves
and their own doubts by God, His signs, and His word. Their suffering
does not mean they made mistakes, nor does it reveal any tragic
dimension of existence: it is, more simply, an
initiation into humility, understood as a necessary stage in the
experience of faith.
