The Prophet ﷺ was brought up as an orphan. As he grew up, he experienced trial upon trial upon trial; he didn’t know his father, his mother passes away also, then his grandfather passes away years later. How do you expect a man who experienced all of this difficulty to be?

How about a boy who is thrown into a well by his brothers, those whom he trusted the most… left to rot and die? Imagine being in the depth of that well and hearing voices and then seeing a rope and basket. You cling onto this rope for dear life thinking that you’re not going to die! You experience a sense of overwhelming joy. But just then you are bound and gagged, taken into slavery! How cruel! That moment of ecstasy extinguished suddenly. You experience days and weeks of being tied and gagged en-route to an unknown land. Nevertheless, you are sold to a man who treats you well, so you experience a ray of light in your dark tunnel. However, the mistress of the house tries to seduce you, leading you to commit sin. But you resist and refrain. But then the mistress brings her friends and creates an even bigger temptation, you resist but because of HER you get sent to prison. Innocently. The accusation being a crime that you did not commit. This was Prophet Yusuf AS.
Are these not hardships?

Statistically speaking, what would you expect of someone who had experienced these hardships?

You would expect a bitter man in search of revenge. A man out to harm society, most likely a serial killer! But we know that he was different.

Understanding With Hardship comes Ease
Allah says:
So, Verily with THE hardship there is ease Verily with THE hardship there is ease (Surat Inshirah; 94:5-6)

People take these verses alone as proof of whatever they’d like to believe. Using just the above verses, some claim that hardship should be our goal because it brings with it ease. In other words, that we should create hardship for it brings with it ease.

Others claim that these verses remind us of ease and that hardship is a passing phase. That ease is the goal that one should strive for. Let’s look at some of what these verses teach us. The use of the term ‘THE hardship’ in this verse implies only ONE hardship. Allah does not define ease or confine it by a number; this means that for every hardship there are two eases. If there was just one hardship and one ease; they would neutralise each other. But this isn’t the case. The reality is that Allah mentions ease at a ratio of 2:1. Ease should therefore flush out hardship! So based on these verses, relatively speaking, there is NO hardship because there is twice as much ease as there is hardship!

So actually these verses don’t tell us what to focus on as much as they tell us that there exists (at least) twice as much ease as there is hardship.

Also some understand the verses as if they said: IN the hardship… as opposed to WITH the hardship. That would stipulate that ease was nested in hardship… almost that you needed hardship in order to have ease. The verse of course doesn’t say “in hardship”, it says “with hardship” so hardship is not needed in order to have ease.

Let’s take the beginning Ayaat of the same surah, Surat Al Inshirah; Have We not expanded your breast? And removed from you your burden That which did blister you back? And raised high the esteem (in which) though (art held)? (94; 1-4) Here it’s obvious that ease is a bounty from Allah, which CAN come after hardship. The verses don’t in and of themselves stipulate that ease ONLY comes after hardship. These verses describe perfectly what happens when a burden is removed. The chest is un-clogged. The constriction is removed. The weight that was burdening one’s shoulders and back is alleviated. The way in which Allah asks: “Have We not expanded your breast and removed from you your burden” suggests that ease is a bounty and that it is more favourable than difficulty.