<b>Guidance from the Hadith:</b><br> 1) Punishment expiates sins.<br> 2) The individual should endure adversity in order to gain the pleasure of Allah, the Exalted.<br> 3) The respite that Allah, the Exalted, grants the sinners is only a gradual destruction for them, because their punishment is delayed for a wisdom and until a prescribed time that Allah Almighty destined for them. {until, when they rejoiced in that which they were given, We seized them suddenly, and they were [then] in despair.}<br> <br> <b>Benefit:</b><br> The above Hadiths explicitly indicate that the stronger the believer’s faith is, the greater the afflictions and trails he goes through. Conversely, the weaker his faith is, the lesser the afflictions and trials. This refutes the feeble-minded people who claim that if the believer is afflicted, then his Lord is displeased with him. This is a faulty assumption whose purpose is to associate the pleasure of Allah in the Hereafter with prosperity in the life of this world. {Do they think that what we extend to them of wealth and children, is [because] We hasten for them good things? Rather, they do not perceive.}