Anas said he heard the Prophet declare that God who is glorious and exalted said, “When I afflict my servant in his two loved things (i.e. his eyes), and he endures patiently, I shall compensate him for them with paradise.”
Usama b. Zaid reported God’s messenger as saying, “Plague is a punishment which was sent down on a section of the B. Isrs’il, or on people before your time. When you hear of it in a land do not go to it, and if it occurs in a land while you are in it do not go out fleeing from it.
‘All said he heard God’s messenger say, “No Muslim will pay a sick visit to another in the morning without seventy thousand angels invoking blessings on him till the evening, or visit him in the evening without seventy thousand angels invoking blessings on him till the morning, and he will have gathered fruits (the word used here is kharif, one of whose meanings is gathered or plucked fruits) in paradise.”
‘A’isha said, “I asked God’s messenger about plague and he told me it is a punishment God sends upon whomsoever He wills, but God has made it a blessing to the believers. When plague comes, anyone who stays patiently in his town looking for his reward from God, knowing that only what God has decreed for him can happen to him, will have a reward like that of a martyr.”
