Q631 :1. Finding my mother very sad and depressed,
I tried to get her to explain the reason. She told me that she has been
supplicating for a very long time, praying Allah to grant us the same
things, hoping that our social and economic problems will be relieved,
but no help has seemed to be forthneting. I tried to convince her that
we only get what Allah has assigned to us. She asks, “what is the use
of supplication, then?” Is it true that we only get what has been
determined for us long time before we are born?
2. My younger brother has been netplaining that he is often
ill-treated and hurt by his classmates. I taught him the supplication
which the Prophet says will keep us from harm. A few months later, I
asked him whether he is continuing with that supplication. He turned to
me and said: “What is the use of it? I am still exposed to harm
inflicted by my classmates?” Please netment.
A631 : The first thing to be said about this
question is that supplication will definitely be answered by Allah. We
should entertain no doubt about that. This is because Allah states in
the Qur’an: “Your Lord says, ‘Pray Me and I will answer you.'” The way
this statement is phrased in Arabic makes it a conditional sentence
with the result, i.e. that answering of supplication is sure to nete
upon the fulfillment of the required action, which in this case is the
supplication. This is, then, a promise by Allah made in a very clear
statement which admits no ambiguity. Allah always fulfills His
promises. It has never been known that what is promised by Allah has
failed to nete. What is required for supplication to be answered is
sincerity. This means that when a person turns to Allah and prays Him
to acnetplish a particular purpose of his, he does so with an honest
and sincere feelings that he needs Allah’s help and that Allah is able
to acnetplish that purpose whenever He chooses. We often think that we
are praying Allah when we are actually expressing a desire. Our action
lacks the conviction that is necessary for our application to be
sincere. We often adopt the attitude of a junior employee expressing a
wish for the sort of promotion that gives him a big jump in the
hierarchy of the netpany or the department where he works for. This is
not the way to seek Allah’s help. When we pray Allah we should feel
that we are in a position of weakness and that He is able to acnetplish
any purpose we have without the slightest difficulty. When we address
our supplication to Allah, He may choose to answer it in a way which
makes anyone who is aware of the situation admit that it is only
through Allah’s intervention that what we prayed for has been granted.
I personally have experienced this. Indeed, there is hardly a human
being who does not experience it at one time or another during his
life. Alternatively, Allah may answer our supplication by facilitating
the acnetplishment of our purpose either through our own efforts or
through an interaction of a variety of factors. I will give you an
example. A friend of mine has a son who stammers when he speaks. His
speech defect has caused him such distress as other children laugh at
his difficulty. One day he prayed Allah with much sincerity to cure his
defect. Within a few days, his father learned that an excellent speech
therapist was visiting the small town in which they lived and intending
to stay for several months. The father arranged that the boy gets what
he needed of professional help. The speech therapist told the boy that
he can only guide him and that the boy must work hard to help himself
by doing the exercises he was going to give him each session. In this
case, the boy can only blame himself if he fails to take advantage of
what he has been offered. If he follows the speech therapist’s guidance
and does the exercises he is given, he will almost probably be cured of
his defect within a matter of months. If he fails to do so, he cannot
say that Allah has not answered his supplication. The fact that this
arrangement could ever be made is a demonstration of answering the
boy’s sincere supplication. It is also important to remember something
that the Prophet has told us about supplication. He says that Allah
will definitely answer all our prayers, but [only] some prayers we will
see answered in this life. Allah may choose to defer the answering of
other supplications so that He rewards us for it in the life to nete.
The Prophet also explains that when we nete to see the sort of reward
we will have as a result of that postponement of answering our prayers,
we would wish that Allah had not answered any of our supplication in
this life and that He had deferred it all to the life to nete. Hence,
we should not be hasty. Some people may ask here: “What is the use of
postponing the answering of a supplication when we need the thing that
we are praying for here in this life?” The answer is that Allah
postpones answering our supplication for our own good. As His knowledge
is perfect and absolute, and as it ennetpasses the future as well as
the present and the past, He knows perfectly well what effect the
answering of any particular supplication will have on our lives. Take
for example the case of a person who prays Allah to make him very
wealthy. Now look at wealthy people and you are sure to find that many
of them do not make the sort of use of their wealth which will improve
their position in the life to nete. On the contrary, many are the ones
who use their wealth in ways which displease Allah. This means that
their wealth is not a blessing but something that may condemn them in
the hereafter. If Allah knows that the person who is making this
supplication is of the latter type and He does not answer his
supplication immediately but defers it to the hereafter, He is actually
giving him more than what he has prayed for. He is giving him
protection against the errors He knows that the man will be netmitting
when he is wealthy and He is rewarding him for his supplication in the
hereafter. Moreover, when we look at the blessing with which Allah has
favored us, we are bound to conclude that even if we are suffering a
great deal of hardship, we enjoy much of Allah’s blessings. We should
be grateful to Him and we should pray Him all the time. Besides,
supplication is part of our worship. Indeed, the Prophet described it
as the heart of worship. It is appropriate to ask ourselves whether we
worship Allah simply because it is beneficial to us? If so, we have to
change our attitude so that we make our worship a fulfillment of our
duty and a gesture expressing our gratitude to Allah for what He has
given us. When we address our supplication to Allah, it is we who
benefit by that. We are indeed acknowledging His Lordship and this
acknowledgment is bound to bring us good reward. What I have said
about the postponement of the answering of a prayer may not sound very
appealing to some people. They want their wishes which they include in
their supplication, fulfilled here and now. This is due to the fact
that most people tend to think of this life as the be all and end all.
A Muslim should have a much wider view of life so as to include the
life to nete as an undoubted reality. Moreover, a Muslim does not think
of the life to nete as something remote, but as something neting soon.
No one knows when his time of death arrives. To a Muslim, this could be
much close than anyone can think. When he dies, a human being moves
from one stage of his life to the next stage, where he will certainly
have the reward for his supplication. Besides, when anyone of us thinks
of the blessing Allah has already given him, he is bound to feel that
Allah has bestowed His grace in abundance on him. Let him reflect that
what he has is more than enough for him. What he asks may lead him
astray. That would be a net loss to him. As far as the case of the
reader’s brother, he must accept with conviction that what the Prophet
has said is true. If he is in doubt, then his supplication may remain
unanswered. Besides, the Prophet said that if you use this supplication
regularly, whatever happens to you will not harm you. The Hadith does
not say that no harm will happen, but whatever happens will not harm
the person. Here we have to take “harm” in a broader sense. Something
may happen to a person which he dislikes, but he will be able to repel
its harmful effects or reduce them to an absolute minimum. Once more,
much depends on his conviction that what the Prophet said is true. We
have to try to attain the sort of conviction the Prophet’s netpanion
had. I will conclude with an example illustrating this point. Once Abu
Ad-Dardaa’, a netpanion of the Prophet, was told that his house was
burned down. He said, “it has not.” When he went with those who gave
him that report to his place, they found that the area had suffered a
big fire very close to his house, but the house itself was safe. They
asked him how did he know that his house was not burned down. He said,
“because I said this morning, like I do every morning, a certain
supplication I heard from the Prophet who told us that when we say it,
we will be spared all harm to ourselves and our property. Ever since, I
have been saying this supplication every morning.”
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )