The pleasure of God, and the one whose anger is His

It is difficult to speak about Lady Fatima al-Zahra. Ziyarat al-Jamiʿa al-Kabira, taught by Imam al-Hadi, has us begin our address to the Ahl al-Bayt with a confession: how could we ever describe you, or praise you as you deserve?

This short read follows one thread through her life: the pleasure of God. What does it mean to please Him, and to be pleased with Him? And why did the Prophet ﷺ say that God’s anger and pleasure follow hers?

Like us, and not like us

The Ahl al-Bayt were human beings. They ate and drank, felt pain and joy, fear and sadness. Because we share that humanity, we can fall into assuming that they were like us.

This is an old mistake. People rejected the prophets for the same reason. “You are nothing but a human being like us,” they said (Qur’an 26:186). Ibrahim ate as they ate; Musa slept as they slept. So what was so special about him?

What they ignored is the most important truth about being human. A person is defined not by the body but by the soul. You may look like a prophet, but his soul is far purer than yours.

Fatima looked like other women. She married, had children, knew days of hardship and days of happiness, and lived only about eighteen years. A first- or second-year university student has already lived longer than she did. Yet the Prophet ﷺ said of her:

Imam al-Sadiq said:

There have been many noble women, Khadija and Sarah among them, but Fatima stands alone. What made her unique was not a different humanity. It was how much she invested in her soul.

Pleased with God, in two worlds

The key to her station is a single theme: riḍā, the pleasure of God, and our pleasure with Him. To see it clearly, begin with Paradise.

Why does the verse not stop at “whatever they wish”? Because you can only desire what you can imagine. God will give you everything you can imagine, and then what lies beyond your imagination. In Paradise there is no pain, no hunger and no ending. It is the celebration that never finishes. Everything good in this world ends, which is why we dread Sunday evening; nothing in Paradise does.

So in Paradise the pleasure is mutual. God is pleased with its people, and they are pleased with Him (Qur’an 98:8). The tranquil soul is called home “well-pleased and well-pleasing” (Qur’an 89:27–28). In Paradise it is easy to say “I am pleased with God.”

In this world it is very hard. We lose people we love. We fall ill. A mother loses a pregnancy. A believer will be patient, but will she say, “O God, thank You for taking my child”? At best, most of us reach patience. Pleasure is another level.

Notice that the Qur’an calls the blessing a test too. For most people, contentment with God is conditional: I am pleased with Him while my life runs smoothly. Give us the trials of Prophet Ayyub, and we may never say it aloud, but we grow frustrated. Imam al-Husayn on the day of ʿAshura was of another order. He gave everything, his children included, and he did not give reluctantly. He gave because it pleased God. Before setting out for Karbala he said:

Hard to please, quick to be pleased

Pleasing God is a paradox. On one side, He is almost impossible to impress. He is all-knowing, all-powerful and in need of nothing. Angels have been in prostration since the moment they were created. He has witnessed the worship of the Prophet ﷺ and the sacrifices of the prophets and Imams. Imagine studying physics under a world-renowned professor; what could you possibly show him? Now multiply that without limit.

On the other side, He is very easy to please, because He has lowered His expectations of us. He does not expect you to worship like the Prophet ﷺ, or to be Fatima. He asks for what is within your capacity, and even when you fall short of your best, He accepts the effort.

Think of a three-year-old who hands you a drawing of a house that looks more like a pigeon. You do not correct it. You put it on the fridge and say, “Beautiful.” They tried. We pray to the One who accepts the little and forgives the much: the half-asleep fajr, the distracted prayer, the small effort. In Duʿa Kumayl we call Him:

He does more than lower the bar. He looks for reasons to be pleased with us. Imam al-Sadiq taught:

And the Prophet ﷺ said:

“God is angered by your anger”

Now return to the famous hadith. Speaking to his daughter, perhaps still a teenager at the time, the Prophet ﷺ said:

Some might say the second half is not remarkable. If making one believer happy pleases the Prophet and so pleases God, then of course God is pleased when Fatima is pleased. That is His mercy at work.

The astonishing part is the first half. We have narrations that if forty believers are pleased with you, God will be pleased. We have no narration that if forty believers are angry with you, God is angry with you. Human anger is not a reliable measure of God’s anger. Even a prophet’s may not be.

The Qur’an tells us that Prophet Yunus left his people in anger when they would not listen (Qur’an 21:87). His anger was not God’s anger. He had been too quick to it, and God taught him patience in the belly of the whale.

So God is careful about whose anger He calls His own. If He bound His anger to someone easily angered, His anger would follow every impatience. When He binds His anger to Fatima, it tells us that her heart held such forbearance, such gentleness, that when she is angered, it can only be for God.

The mother of her father

She was known as Umm Abīhā, the mother of her father.

Consider what that meant. She was born around five years after his mission began, into years of abuse from the Meccans. Then came the boycott: three years confined in the valley of Abu Talib, with the small community of believers hungry, cut off from their families, and every burden falling on one man.

A five- or six-year-old in those conditions would normally need her father’s comfort. She went to bed hungry. Yet it was she who comforted him. She did not complain. She lightened his load and was his support.

Her life did not grow easier. She lost her mother as a small child, left her birthplace in the hijra, and married a man who rode out to battle again and again. When ʿAli returned wounded, she tended his wounds. The daughter of the most important man in Arabia lived simply, in poverty and sacrifice, with none of the entitlement we see in the children of the powerful.

The Prophet ﷺ, who had seen Paradise itself, said:

She carried the qualities of its people.

At the gate of Paradise

Jabir once asked Imam al-Baqir for a hadith about his grandmother Fatima, one that would bring joy to her followers. Among the things the Imam told him was what will happen when she is escorted to Paradise on the Day of Judgement:

In this world, many have barely heard her name. On that Day everyone will know it. Then the Imam swore an oath:

God is not only pleased with her. He is pleased with whoever she is pleased with.

Living for His pleasure

Fatima’s station is beyond us. But the path she walked is open to all of us, and God has made it easy to begin.

1. Move from patience toward pleasure.

   When hardship comes, ask not only “Can I endure this?” but “Can I accept this as His choice for me?”

2. Notice when your contentment is conditional.

   Blessings are a test as well. Gratitude in ease prepares the heart for trust in difficulty.

3. Offer what you can, sincerely.

   God has lowered the bar. The small, imperfect act given with effort is accepted.

4. Bring happiness to someone.

   Sit with someone having a hard day. Make them laugh, bring a gift, take them for coffee. It reaches the Prophet ﷺ, and it reaches God.

5. Guard your anger.

   Most of our anger is not God’s anger. Let hers be the measure: anger only for what angers Him.

Then love her, and love her family. Her love is the hand that reaches back for us at the gate of Paradise.

We ask God to fill our hearts with love for Lady Fatima and her children, and to grant us the ability to be pleased with His will, whether He blesses us with ease or withholds from us what we think is good for us.