Sūratu’l-Baqarah [The Cow] : (2:185)

يُر۪يدُ اللّٰهُ بِكُمُ الْيُسْرَ وَلَا يُر۪يدُ بِكُمُ الْعُسْرَ

“God wills ease for you, and He does not will hardship for you.” (Al-Baqarah 2:185)

Basically,

•There is no compulsion in the religion.

•Things that are seemingly hard are actually a means of ease.

•God always prefers ease for His servants in matters involving difficulty and trouble.

Shortening the Prayer during travel; the permission for breaking the fast in the evening instead of ordering a fast from dawn to dawn; and the permission for tayammum (dry ablution using sand or dust, which may be performed in place of the ritual ablution or the whole body ablution if no clean water is readily available or there is some serious harm or danger in using water) are only a few examples.

Even the mistakes in the devotions are forgiven if they are out of forgetting.

▪For instance, if a person forgets that he or she is fasting and eats or drinks, this is not considered a violation of the fast; rather, it is considered a feast from Allāh.

▪Furthermore, some exemptions are granted for the excused due to an essential or incidental reason, and easiness has always been preferred in the practice of the religion. For this reason, there are many seemingly-hard obligations that are in fact the cornerstone of the eternal happiness.

▪For instance, many acts of worship involve struggling with the carnal soul and requiring patience. But they cause believers to rise to higher levels of the spiritual life, to gain resistance against any hardship, and to acquire a state apt for the afterlife.

▪In addition,if certain acts of worship cause trouble for those with some impediments or excuses, Divine dispensation or exemption comes to their help, and these acts of worship are either changed with easy substitutes, or they can even be omitted by the excused persons, leaving the spiritual reward to come from them to the good, sincere intention of the excused. For example, material or financial compensations or atonements compensate for the permitted omission of an act of worship, while the exemption from some acts of those who are too old or too weak to perform them or of those who suffer irrecoverable disease is compensated by the sincere intention of believers to perform them.

Difficulty and ease in fulfilling religious commands are directly proportional with one’s spiritual condition, educational level, habitude, and so on.

▪This is so because the religion is all-inclusive, from the beginners to the educated and the pious. That is, it does not matter if the members of the religion of Islam are professors or students or doorkeepers, laborers, or bosses. It perfectly satisfies everyone with every level of understanding intellectually and spiritually.

Everybody can feel the happiness and contentment of obedience to God’s commands and prohibitions according to their own spiritual level.

▪However, if one examines the commands and prohibitions of Islam in regard to their essential nature, one understands that so much ease and tolerance are included in those commands and prohibitions.