A Supplication for Fulfilling a Need — Jurisprudential Answers — Miscellaneous Issues, Vol. 4

Ahmed al-Hasan Response:

If a supplication contains blessings upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, it is raised, God willing, however simple and brief it may be. Sincerity in supplication hastens the response, but the response is in the hand of God Almighty: ‘Perhaps what has been delayed from me is better for me because of Your knowledge of the outcome of matters.’ Perhaps the solution is in my own hands while I am asking God to solve my problem for me. Here is a supplication in which, God willing, there is much good for whoever persists in it for forty days, and I ask you to pray for me: ‘O You through whom the knots of hardships are untied; O You through whom the sharpness of adversities is blunted; O You from whom the way out toward the relief of deliverance is sought. Difficulties are humbled before Your power, causes are set in motion by Your gentleness, decree runs by Your power, and all things proceed according to Your will. By Your will they obey without Your spoken command, and by Your will they are restrained without Your prohibition. You are the One called upon in grave matters, and You are the refuge in calamities. Nothing of them is repelled except what You repel, and nothing of them is removed except what You remove. There has descended upon me, O Lord, that whose weight has burdened me, and there has befallen me that whose load has overwhelmed me. By Your power You brought it upon me, and by Your authority You directed it toward me. None can send away what You have brought, none can turn aside what You have directed, none can open what You have closed, none can close what You have opened, none can make easy what You have made difficult, and none can help one whom You have forsaken. So bless Muhammad and his family, and open for me, O Lord, the gate of relief through Your gracious favor. Break from me the dominion of anxiety through Your might. Grant me a good outcome regarding that of which I have complained. Let me taste the sweetness of Your beneficence regarding that for which I have asked. Grant me from Yourself mercy and a wholesome relief, and make for me from Yourself a swift way out. Do not let concern distract me from observing Your obligations and practicing Your tradition. For I have become constrained, O Lord, by what has descended upon me, and I have become filled with anxiety from bearing what has happened to me. You are able to remove what I have been afflicted with and to repel what I have fallen into. So do this for me even though I do not deserve it from You, O Possessor of the Mighty Throne and Possessor of Generous Favor. You are powerful, O Most Merciful of the merciful. Amen, Lord of the worlds.’