Tafsir al-Tasnim – Verse 2:186

The verse of supplication · Translated from the Arabic edition of Tasnīm, vol. 9, pp. 429–492

The Verse

بِسْمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

In the name of Allah, the most Merciful, the most Compassionate

وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ ۖ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ ۖ فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُوا لِي وَلْيُؤْمِنُوا بِي لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ ﴿١٨٦﴾

When My servants ask you about Me, [tell them that] I am indeed nearmost. I answer the supplicant’s call when he calls Me. So let them respond to Me, and let them have faith in Me, so that they may fare rightly. (186)

Summary of the Exegesis

The Most Noble Prophet (s.a.w.) was asked about Lordship and about how God Almighty governs, oversees, is present and answers supplication (not about the origin of existence and its creation), and about the way in which He (s.w.t.) responds to needs. God (s.w.t.) answered them in words full of tenderness and mercy, affirming to them that in supplication there is no intermediary at all between creation and Him. He said to them: I am near to every servant who calls on Me alone (who does not call on another than Me, nor on Me and another than Me at the same time); I will answer him and will not disappoint his hope.(1)

This response to that petitionary question — with its emphasis on the nearness of God (s.w.t.) to all without exception; its statement that this nearness abides and is constant and that the answering is swift; and then its statement that God Almighty’s answering of supplication is renewed and continuous — indicates beyond any doubt the kindness of God (s.w.t.) and His care for all His creatures.

God (s.w.t.), the One who answers, will without doubt respond, as a favour, to sincere supplication that accords with [the servant’s] good. For supplication is a kind of worship, and no worship that is free of taints will remain without reward; besides this, not responding to supplication would disappoint the supplicant’s hope and the seeker’s expectation of continuing in supplication and of the promise of answering. Neglect and disregard do not befit the absolutely Wise, just as breaking a promise does not befit the One and Only God. For this reason no supplication will remain without answer and reward, even if [what it asks for] is contrary to wisdom.

Here the call of God (s.w.t.) ought to be answered with submission and surrender to Him and with faith in Him, so that the ground needed for the other requirements of faith may be provided. For supplication to be responded to, the supplicant, too, must be near to God (s.w.t.). To bring about this nearness, God Almighty has commanded that His request be heeded, that His commands be obeyed and that there be faith in Him; and this includes all the ethical, juristic and legal commands, after faith in the basic principles. Accordingly, Godwariness (taqwā) is nothing other than responding to God Almighty and having faith in Him and in His power to fulfil the requests and requirements of supplication. The supplication of the supplicants, and their ranks, also differ according to the differing degrees and ranks of nearness, answering, response and faith.

Exegesis

Vocabulary

Ujību… fa-l-yastajībū (“I answer… so let them respond”): ijābah and istijābah are from [the root] j-w-b. The single root meaning of this root is piercing and penetrating, and this is an effect either on matter or on meaning. Thus one says jāba al-ṣakhrah, that is, he bored through the rock; jāba al-qamīṣ, that is, he cut [an opening in] the shirt; and jāba al-bilād, that is, he crossed the land on foot, as though he pierced the land and penetrated it. Al-jawāb and al-jābah [“answer”] mean replying to speech, or meeting [it] with an action that affects the other party, penetrates his heart, pierces his difficult problem and loosens its knot. The true meaning of jawāb, then, is this concept, and it ought to be used in this sense. As for the augmented derived forms, what is meant by them is this concept with the meaning of the pattern and form added to it. Thus one says ajāba daʿwatahu [“he answered his call”], meaning he made his supplication effective, his words influential and his action productive and accepted; and one says istajāba Allāh duʿāʾahu [“God responded to his supplication”], meaning He sought its effect and its penetration and willed the attainment of what he sought. The single root meaning of this root has thus become clear; jawāb, ijābah and istijābah then came to be used for what results from that concept, namely acceptance and the attainment of what is wanted.(4)

Some have said that istijābah is answering with care and readiness, the sīn and tāʾ being for intensification;(5) others have said that the term istijābah comes with compliance and submission, unlike ijābah.(6)

Amīn al-Islām al-Ṭabrisī (may God have mercy on him) said that ijābah and istijābah have one meaning. On this basis the sentence ‘So let them respond to Me’ means that the servants must answer God Almighty’s call and have faith in Him, so that they may be granted success in travelling the straight path.

Yarshudūn (“that they may fare rightly”): rushd is being guided to the good and to righteousness.(7) Some Qurʾānic verses have clearly set out the causes and factors of rushd, as well as the example of the one who is rightly guided (al-rāshid).(8)

The Relationship between the Verses

The exegetes have mentioned many aspects of the relationship between this verse and the noble verses that precede it, the most important of which are the following:

1. The supplication of one who is fasting is answered, especially in the month of Ramaḍān, and the Night of Qadr in particular is a likely occasion for answering.

2. After the reference to the grandeur of God (s.w.t.) in the preceding verse, some might imagine that God (s.w.t.) is far from His servants and can be asked only through an intermediary. But He (s.w.t.) said: ‘I am indeed nearmost. I answer the supplicant’s call when he calls Me.’(9)

3. The preceding verse commanded the completion [of the number], magnifying [God] (takbīr) and giving thanks, and this raised a question in the minds of those addressed: Is there a reward in return for obeying those commands? Yes: God Almighty honoured those who obey and comply with His commands and answered their supposed question, saying: ‘When My servants ask you about Me, [tell them that] I am indeed nearmost. I answer the supplicant’s call when he calls Me.’(10)

4. To emphasise the preceding commands — among them the command to fast the blessed month of Ramaḍān and to complete its number — and likewise His urging them to carry out the duty of magnifying [God] and giving thanks, He followed these with this verse, which indicates that He (s.w.t.) is aware of their states, hears their words, answers their supplication and recompenses them for their deeds, so as to emphasise that and to urge them to it.(11)

5. The preceding verse commanded the believers to praise and give thanks, while the verse under explanation makes supplication desirable to them, as instruction in asking and as a reminder of the excellence of seeking.(12)

6. The magnifying [of God] and the giving of thanks that God (s.w.t.) commanded in the preceding verse are of two kinds: by word and by deed. Concerning the first kind, a question may come to mind: Should the human being call on his Lord in a loud voice, or may he converse intimately with God in a low voice? This noble verse was sent down in answer to that enquiry: there is no need to call on God (s.w.t.) in a loud voice, for He hears supplication in every voice.(13)

7. Some Sunni exegetes have imagined that abrogation took place in the rulings on fasting, and have said, concerning the coming of this verse after the verses on fasting: When He (s.w.t.) commanded them to fast the month and observe the number, and urged them to carry out the duties of magnifying [God] and giving thanks, He followed this with the present verse, which indicates that He (s.w.t.) is aware of their actions, hears their words and recompenses them for their deeds, so as to emphasise it and urge them to it. Or: when He abrogated the rulings on fasting, He mentioned this verse, which indicates the completeness of His knowledge of the state of the servants, the completeness of His power over them and the utmost of His kindness to them in the course of abrogating the rulings, so as to make them firm in faith and establish them in responding; for the occasion of abrogation is a likely occasion for whispering [doubts] and wavering. On both suppositions, then, the sentence is parenthetical between two statements connected in meaning: the first is what has preceded, and the second is His words (s.w.t.): ‘You are permitted on the night of the fast to go into your wives: they are a garment for you, and you are a garment for them. Allah knew that you would betray yourselves, so He pardoned you and excused you. So now consort with them and seek what Allah has ordained for you, and eat and drink until the white streak becomes manifest to you from the dark streak at the crack of dawn. Then complete the fast until nightfall, and do not consort with them while you dwell in confinement in the mosques. These are Allah’s bounds, so do not approach them. Thus does Allah clarify His signs for mankind so that they may be Godwary.’(14)(15)

8. It is clear from what has been said that the blessed month of Ramaḍān is the month of fasting, of reciting the Qurʾān and of reflecting on the luminous verses, besides being the month of supplication and the time of asking and imploring God (s.w.t.). In this noble month supplication is more sincere and answering swifter, and the supplicant is nearer to the divine effusions of grace. Hence God, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful, in the course of legislating fasting and setting out its rulings, raised the subject of the sending down of the Noble Qurʾān alongside supplication and response. Indeed, He placed the verse concerning supplication among the verses on fasting in order to show the importance of supplication in this mighty month and its special character in comparison with the other months.

* * *

Special Kindnesses

The noble verse points, in general, to the special care of God (s.w.t.) for His servants who show the utmost servanthood and the extreme of submission to Him and to His Lordship.(16) We observe that what is set forth in this verse under the title of God’s answering (s.w.t.) — His words (s.w.t.) ‘I answer the supplicant’s call’ — bears the colouring of bestowed favour, whereas what comes under the title of the servants’ responding, ‘So let them respond to Me’, has the touch of obedience and submission.

The verse contains examples of God Almighty’s mercy and His grace towards His servants, among them:

1. The subject (the subject of supplication) is mentioned in the form of the one present — not the absent — with reference to the first-person singular pronoun seven times. This makes the verse unique of its kind in the Noble Qurʾān, because of the extreme care of God (s.w.t.) for its subject, namely supplication, which is manifested in it.

2. Reflect well on what is contained in the use of the word ‘My servants’ (ʿibādī), instead of the word ‘people’ (al-nās) or other words: it indicates the concern of the Creator (s.w.t.) for supplication. This resembles the annexing of the Kaʿbah to God Almighty and its being honoured by ascription to Him (s.w.t.) where He says ‘My House’;(17) likewise the servants are annexed to God (s.w.t.) and ascribed to Him, for this is a cause for them to take pride, a pride to which they are entitled.

The use of the word ‘My servants’ is a general expression, completely different from His words (s.w.t.), for example, ‘The servants of the All-beneficent’(18) or ‘Then enter among My servants’;(19) these two expressions are used to refer to a particular class or group of servants or of people. For what is understood from His words (s.w.t.) ‘Then enter among My servants’, followed by His words (s.w.t.) ‘and enter My paradise!’,(20) is that there is a specific group that enjoys this distinguished rank or station, and that others are unable to attain that rank. The word ‘My servants’ in the noble verse we are explaining, by contrast, includes any needy servant among God’s servants for whom no special rank, such as a special garden or the like, has been designated.

In sum, the word ‘My servants’ that occurs at the end of Sūrat al-Fajr refers to specific servants. First, because it intends a specific group and a specific station for them, and no one can reach that inaccessible station without permission or guidance. Second, the word is preceded by His words (s.w.t.): ‘O soul at peace! Return to your Lord, pleased and pleasing!’;(21) and this means that reaching the station of the soul at peace, and attaining the good pleasure of the Creator (God Almighty) and of creation at the same time, is within the power of none but the elect among the servants, not of all of them. Third, the verses mentioned are followed by His words (s.w.t.) ‘and enter My paradise!’, which indicates that this garden differs from the one mentioned in His words (s.w.t.), for example, ‘gardens with streams running in them’,(22) and from the other gardens. Even so, some of the common servants may enter the enclosure of the elect and rise to their rank gradually, because of the response and faith mentioned in the verse.

3. The absence of an intermediary or go-between in His words (s.w.t.) ‘I am indeed nearmost’: He did not say, for example, ‘Say: He is near.’ Accordingly, the statement of whoever has said that ‘Say’ is elided by way of figurative usage is incorrect.(23)

4. The emphasis on the nearness of God (s.w.t.) through the use of inna (“indeed”).

5. The use of the adjective ‘nearmost’ (qarīb) instead of a verb, to express the constancy, continuance and permanence of the nearness of God (s.w.t.).

6. The use of the verb ‘I answer’ (ujību), which conveys the renewal and continuance of answering.

7. The qualifying of the phrase ‘I answer the supplicant’s call’ by the conditional clause ‘when he calls Me’, where both clauses share one content, namely that true supplication is answered without any condition;(24) and likewise, true supplication is nothing other than supplication to God (s.w.t.) — not supplication to another than Him, or supplication tainted with what does not befit Him.

8. The sentence ‘I am indeed nearmost’ alludes to how swiftly He (s.w.t.) answers, because of the closeness between the meanings of ‘swift’ and ‘nearmost’. The expression also points to the nearness of God (s.w.t.) to His servants by knowledge and power, not by adjacency and place; for place is one of His creatures and is among the attributes of contingency and of matter, and God (s.w.t.) transcends every attribute of contingency and matter. So the meaning of the noble verse is not tainted with any kind of corporealism (tajsīm); rather, it is a proof of the negation of corporealism and of the transcendence of the holy Essence of God above place. For if He had a place, He would not be near to everyone who converses with Him in private; His words ‘I am indeed nearmost’ therefore indicate that He has no specific place.(25)

The Interrogative Question about the Petitionary Question

The noble verse opens its discourse with a question, namely ‘When [My servants] ask you’. A question is sometimes in the sense of enquiry and seeking knowledge of something; at other times it is in the sense of asking for a gift (istiʿṭāʾ); and at times it points to the sense of seeking clarification and objecting demand. The Noble Qurʾān has given an example of each of these kinds of question, and we shall set this out in detail and clarify it in another place.

We can derive the meaning of the question here from its answer: it is an interrogative question(26) enquiring whether God (s.w.t.) is near or far, whether He answers those who call on Him or not, whether His answering (s.w.t.) is conditional or unconditional, and the like. On this basis, the interrogative question mentioned turns principally on the petitionary question and its answer; the verse does not itself contain a petitionary question, as do the noble verses ‘Everyone in the heavens and the earth asks Him’(27) and ‘And ask Allah for His bounty’.(28)

The interrogative question in this verse thus deals with the subject of Lordship, oversight, presence and answering, and does not touch on the question of the origin of existence or of the creatorship of God (s.w.t.). For the polytheists living in the Arabian Peninsula already believed that God (s.w.t.) is the Creator of this world, as His words (s.w.t.) confirm: ‘If you ask them, “Who created the heavens and the earth?” they will surely say, “Allah.”’(29) They even used to call Him (s.w.t.) ‘Lord of lords’ and ‘Lord of the worlds’; but they were perplexed and in doubt as to who holds in his hand the governance of human affairs and the solving of their problems. That is why we see God Almighty addressing His Noble Messenger (s.a.w.) in the verse mentioned, saying: O Muḥammad (s.a.w.), if these people ask you about My Lordship, and about how I govern the affairs of creation and how I answer their requests and respond to their supplications, say to them: I am near to them, but the shortcoming is attributable to them. So if you ask God (s.w.t.) for beneficial things and useful matters, and do not seek them from another than Him, He will respond to you; for He is near to you, and He is the One with power to respond to your supplication. Besides, no one other than Him is able to do anything at all for you if He does not will it.

The human being, with all his existence, essence, attributes and acts, is nothing but one of the servants of God (s.w.t.); for His one, holy Essence encompasses all the affairs of the human being, and He oversees them all. All-comprehensive Lordship therefore belongs to the Lord of the worlds alone.

An allusion: The Messenger of God (s.a.w.) represents the special chamberlain (ḥājib) of God (s.w.t.), who carries out the answering of the requests of creation by seeking the help of the Creator, or conveys the Creator’s answer to creation directly, besides being His Messenger who conveys His speech to His creation. Here we should not forget that there is no veil (ḥijāb) whatever between the Creator and His creation; yet receiving the answer to supplication from the Creator directly is not possible for all of creation.

The Answer to the Questions of Corporealism and Anthropomorphism

The exegetes have mentioned many occasions of revelation for this verse, but establishing the soundness of all those occasions is no easy matter. Some of them have considered more likely the possibility that such a question was put by the Arabs who worshipped idols and images, asking whether God (s.w.t.) was far from them or near,(30) and [saying] that if He is in the heaven, and the distance between the heaven and the earth is five hundred years, how then can He hear the voice of the supplicant?(31) It is not strange, then, that the people of the Jāhiliyyah who believed in corporealism and held the doctrine of anthropomorphism (tashbīh), and likewise the Jews influenced by materialism, should ask such questions.

The Tafsīr of al-Ṭabarī is full of the sensory ideas and material views that prevailed among the Arabs of the Jāhiliyyah.(32) Some of these preceded the revelation of this verse, and others persisted even after its revelation. Among those aspects, some concern calling out and private converse; others deal with particular points of the question, namely the direction one must face in supplicating God (s.w.t.); and still others concern the time of supplication, or the special times and suitable hours in which one can speak with God Almighty and converse with Him intimately.

In answer to all those questions the noble verse we are explaining was sent down, together with the noble verse ‘so whichever way you turn, there is the face of Allah! Allah is indeed all-bounteous, all-knowing’.(33) The two were the sufficient and comprehensive answer to all those illusions, and they removed the superstitions of corporealism and anthropomorphism. In them God (s.w.t.) made clear that He is always near to all and at one distance from them all; and He established for them that such a Creator Being, who is not located [in place] and not bound by time, is near to every creature and hears the supplication of those who call on Him, and that there is no need for these people to raise their voices.

As for the presence of certain other factors in the matter of supplication — temporal factors, such as the time of breaking the fast, the pre-dawn hours and the Night of Qadr, or spatial factors, such as the mosque, beneath the water-spout [of the Kaʿbah], at ʿArafāt and so on — all of them represent further details that complete the original picture and the receptive principle, not the active [principle]; that is, the supplicant may obtain a greater effusion of grace in special circumstances. This is not an indication of a difference in nearness on the part of God (s.w.t.).

The Nearness of the Real and the Stages of That Nearness

God (s.w.t.) is near to His creation: ‘I am indeed nearmost’; ‘My Lord is indeed nearmost [and] responsive’;(34) ‘Indeed He is all-hearing and nearmost’;(35) and between Him and His servants there is no veil whatever other than their evil deeds and their sins: ‘and that the one who journeys to You is near in distance, and that You do not veil Yourself from Your creation, unless deeds veil them from You.’(36)

Nearness here is not confined only to temporal or spatial nearness and similar material matters. For this reason, its application to God (s.w.t.) is by way of literal truth (ḥaqīqah), not representation (tamthīl); and this is what we glean from Tafsīr al-Kashshāf.(37)

Nor is the literal meaning of nearness restricted to adjacency or spatial nearness, such that it would be like a metaphor (istiʿārah) when used for the being that is transcendent above place, as al-Ālūsī supposed.(38)

From His words ‘I am indeed nearmost’ we infer that this is His nearness (s.w.t.) to the asker and the supplicant, not their nearness to Him; the means of their nearness to God (s.w.t.) are known from the expressions that follow this phrase. God Almighty’s nearness, then, is one of His attributes, while His answering supplication, or the swiftness of His answer, is one of His acts; and what the noble verse conveys is the affirmation of the attribute of nearness before the affirmation of the act of answering.

Each of the two titles, nearness and answering — ‘I am indeed nearmost. I answer the supplicant’s call’ — may have its own particular marks (shaʿāʾir). For the root of supplication is worship, and worship is the cause of the worshipper’s drawing near; whereas God (s.w.t.) becomes manifest and discloses Himself by the blessed Name ‘nearmost’ (qarīb) in order to make the supplicant one of His loci of manifestation, and thereby to bring him near to God (s.w.t.). In addition, what the supplication contains is a legitimate request, whose fruits are gathered through the manifestation of His act of answering (s.w.t.). So when the supplicant reaches his goal and attains what he wanted, he will be commanded to meet the needs and requests of the needy and to answer them in the required way.

The nearness of the Real Almighty comes in stages, in the following order:

1. God (s.w.t.) is nearer to the human being than anyone else: ‘and We are nearer to him than you are, though you do not perceive’.(39)

2. God (s.w.t.) is nearer to the human being than his jugular vein: ‘and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein’.(40) Since nearness in relation to God Almighty is only in respect of standing and rank, not place, we can say that God (s.w.t.) is the most important vital factor for the human being, in respect of His encompassing [him] and His being his Sustainer (qayyūmiyyah). That is, although the human being’s life ends when his jugular vein is cut, God (s.w.t.) is nearer to him than this jugular vein.

3. God, Exalted be His praise, is nearer to the human being than his own self: ‘Know that Allah intervenes between a man and his heart’.(41)

Some scholars interpreted this verse in terms of ‘the intervention of power’ (ḥaylūlat al-qudrah), which is a middling meaning, and said: ‘Its meaning is that He, Glorified is He, has power to turn hearts from state to state, as has come in the supplication: “O Turner of hearts and eyes!” It is as though they feared fighting, so He, Glorified is He, informed them that He would exchange their fear for security by intervening between them and the causes of fear they were thinking about.’(42)

There is no doubt that the infinite reality has an existential presence in every place. On the basis of this rational proof — which accords with the apparent meaning of the noble verse (al-Anfāl: 24) and with the other transmitted proofs,(43) such as their saying, ‘He is within things, without intermixture’,(44) and which supports what we have said — the verse can be interpreted according to its apparent meaning. For since the human being, like all other contingent beings, is hollow (ajwaf),(45) not solid and impermeable (ṣamad wa-muṣmat), the existential encompassing of the Real Almighty comes between the human being and his own self. And since the knowledge and power of God (s.w.t.) are the very same as His holy Essence, the existence of God (s.w.t.) will intervene between that, if His knowledge Almighty or His power intervenes between the human being and his heart, which makes up the root of his identity.

However, the best way to prove the absolute nearness of God (s.w.t.) to the essence, attribute, act and effect of anything is the unlimited reality of that pure existence. If such a being is the nearest thing to any being, rather than anything else, this entails the finitude of the infinite being, even if it does not belong to that being.(46)

In the course of proving the absolute nearness of God Almighty to anything, Fakhr al-Rāzī says: ‘Know that His words Almighty “I am indeed nearmost” contain a rational secret. That is because the quiddities of contingent things’ being qualified by their existences is only through the Maker’s bringing [them] into existence; so the Maker’s bringing into existence is like an intermediary between the quiddities of contingent things and their existences. So the Maker is nearer to the quiddity of every contingent thing than the existence of that quiddity is to it. Indeed, there is here a word higher than that, namely: the Maker is He on whose account the quiddities of contingent things became existent; so it is also on His account that substance was substance, blackness blackness, intellect intellect and soul soul. Just as through His effecting and His bringing into being the quiddities became existent, so likewise through His effecting and His bringing into being every quiddity became that quiddity. So by analogy with what preceded, the Maker is nearer to every quiddity than that quiddity is to itself. If it is said: “The bringing into being of a quiddity is impossible, because making blackness blackness is inconceivable”, we say: Then likewise it is not possible to make existence existence, because it is a quiddity; nor is it possible to make qualification indicative of the quiddity.(47) So then quiddity is not through the agent, and existence is also a quiddity, so it is not through the agent; and the quiddity’s being qualified by existence is also a quiddity, so it is not through the agent. So then nothing at all would come about through the agent; and that is false, manifestly false. So then it is necessary to judge that everything is through the agent.’(48)

It must be pointed out here, first, that it is not permissible to use philosophical and theological terms in the art of exegesis except where necessary. Second, what appears at the beginning and in the middle of Fakhr al-Rāzī’s statement is full of confusion and errors. For he confused simple making (al-jaʿl al-basīṭ), [that of] the complete kāna, with compound making (al-jaʿl al-murakkab), [that of] the incomplete kāna; then he confused quiddity in the specific sense with quiddity in the general sense (that by which a thing is what it is); not to mention his confusing quiddity, which is a category, with the concept, which is reckoned of the type of the external categories and of the secondary categories.(49) He thus raised such questions, remote from verification and investigation and far from the mind; and the intellect cannot correctly explain the meaning of divine nearness at all.

At any rate, the concrete existence (al-wujūd al-ʿaynī) of nearness should be investigated through presential experience (al-wijdān al-ḥuḍūrī), just as its existence as knowledge was analysed through acquired (ḥuṣūlī) proof. Philosophy (ḥikmah) and theology (kalām), that is, are responsible for knowing it as knowledge, while pure gnosis (ʿirfān) is responsible for witnessing it concretely. This is what the noble verse 85 of Sūrat al-Wāqiʿah attests: ‘and We are nearer to him than you are, though you do not perceive’ [literally, ‘but you do not see’ (lā tubṣirūn)]; He (s.w.t.) did not say, ‘but you do not know’. This means that the matter here requires an insight (baṣīrah) of the malakūt if the concrete nearness of God Almighty is to be witnessed. So when the supplicant is able to experience this vision of the malakūt, his supplication will without doubt occupy a special rank, and so will its answering.

Encouragement to Supplication and the Censure of One Who Abandons It

We can classify the verses relating to supplication — especially those concerning the effects of supplication, encouragement to it and censure for abandoning it, and indeed threat and warning to one who disdains it — into three categories:

1. Verses indicating that the root of supplication is the source of the effect, like the verse we are interpreting.

2. Verses that urge and encourage supplication, in addition to making clear that the root of supplication is the source of the effect. He (s.w.t.) says: ‘Call Me, and I will hear you!’,(50) and He Almighty says: ‘and supplicate Him with fear and hope’.(51)

3. Some verses containing a threat, in which those who disdain supplication are described as having no value — neither they nor their counterfeit supplication — and [as being such] that God (s.w.t.) does not look on them with a special look of honour, besides their being deprived of His grace (s.w.t.) as in His words Almighty: ‘Say, “Were it not for the sake of summoning you [to faith], what store my Lord would have set by you?”’.(52) Another verse points to a group no less arrogant than this one with regard to supplication; there we see God Almighty censure them and promise them Hell as a destination and a place of return: ‘Indeed those who are disdainful of My worship will enter hell in utter humiliation’.(53)

The Degrees of Supplication

Supplication has three degrees:

1. Supplication by the tongue of capacity (lisān al-istiʿdād). Its effect is certainly far-reaching. For when a being possesses the capacity required to receive perfection and grace, the Agent (who is God (s.w.t.)) will neither be niggardly nor withhold; rather, He will give every being what it desires, according to its capacity and its receptivity: ‘He said, “Our Lord is He who gave everything its creation and then guided it”’.(54)

To this part of supplication belong His words Almighty: ‘Everyone in the heavens and the earth asks Him’,(55) and likewise His words (s.w.t.): ‘and He gave you all that you had asked Him’;(56) that is, God (s.w.t.) has given you everything you asked for by the tongue of capacity, whereas He (s.w.t.) has turned back most of the supplications made by the tongue of speech and not of capacity.

Reminder: If the asking is by the tongue of complete capacity, then the preposition min in His words Almighty ‘and He gave you all that you had asked Him’ (wa-ātākum min kulli mā saʾaltumūh) is not partitive; otherwise, it would have carried the sense of partition.

2. Supplication by the tongue of state (lisān al-ḥāl). This ranks lower than supplication by the tongue of capacity. Some hold that the state is capacity itself, since a person sometimes passes through a matter of state and a passing, temporary capacity, and his heart turns sincerely to God, so that his supplication in this situation is answered. As with supplication by the tongue of capacity, verbal supplication is not considered necessary in this division. In it a person is characterised by humility, submissiveness, seeking, taking refuge and the like, so that in this situation he asks of his Lord what suits his particular state, even if his capacity has not reached the full required measure.

3. Supplication by the tongue of speech (lisān al-maqāl). The effect of such supplication is not like that of supplication in the first two degrees, although it keeps its character as worship: ‘Supplication is the marrow of worship.’(57)

It should be pointed out here that supplicants are not equal; this is what the Messenger of God (s.a.w.) indicated in his words to Abū Dharr (may God have mercy on him), when he said: ‘O Abū Dharr, together with righteousness, as much supplication suffices as the salt that suffices food.’(58) That is: strive to make the tongue of your supplication a tongue of capacity, such that it takes effect in the [present] state by your mere sighing,(59) and try to increase the proportion of your capacity; for your supplication will be answered with a little supplication, even by the tongue of speech, rather than with little capacity, deficiency in state and excess in asking, for that will change nothing in the matter.

Supplication is either temporal or of the soul (nafsī), and sometimes a preliminary, in any of the tongues;(60) that is, there is a difference between recitation (qirāʾah, reading) and request (ṭalab, willing), even though supplication contains request in any case.

The explanation of this is that the request is sometimes for merely witnessing or seeing the one called upon; in this case the supplicant calls the one called upon in order to behold him. At other times the request is for something else, as when the supplicant calls for healing or for something else. And for this reason the supplication which is sometimes in the sense of recitation and of drawing the attention of the one called upon, or [which is] for drawing attention, where the human being asks to meet the one called upon, at other times; or [where] drawing the attention of the one called upon is a preliminary to stating his request, at yet other times — so he calls on God (s.w.t.) that He may attend to the asker and ask him what he wants, and then the supplicant states his request.(61) Such supplication and such recitation represent a preliminary to an asking and a request, and this is what the noble verse aims at: ‘supplicate their Lord in fear and hope’.(62)

Perhaps the most prominent witness to the degree of the recitation of supplication which is counted a special asking, and in which the request is merely to behold the one called upon, is the supplication of our master Moses (a.s.) when he said: ‘My Lord, show [Yourself] to me, that I may look at You!’,(63) or the supplication that says: ‘O God, I ask You of Your beauty at its most beautiful, and all Your beauty is beautiful.’(64) The aim of this kind of supplication may be to find the beauty of the one sought and to behold it, as has come concerning the beauty of men in their saying: ‘The beauty of men is in their intellects.’(65)

Conditions for the Answering of Supplication

There is no doubt that God (s.w.t.) does not break His promise; but in some supplications, fulfilling all the conditions and being free of impediments and obstacles is no easy matter. Even so, some supplications are at times answered once all the conditions of supplication have been fulfilled in them; and such a supplication is none other than the pure supplication of the sincere servant who engages in the supererogatory acts (nawāfil), intimate converse (munājāh) and asking without a speaking tongue, in the station of action. A supplication such as this, voiced with the name of God (s.w.t.) — ‘I become … his tongue with which he speaks’(66) — is certainly answered, because all the conditions are fulfilled in it and it is free of any impediment that would prevent its being answered; for God (s.w.t.) never rejects a supplication.

In the verse under interpretation, God (s.w.t.) has guaranteed to answer supplication provided the supplicant observes and adheres to two basic conditions; but conditions of this kind serve only to realise the basis of the subject, and no more. Hence this does not conflict with what was said earlier, that the import of the verse is the answering of supplication without qualification (muṭlaq al-duʿāʾ). In some cases, what is intended and sought is a condition of the perfection of supplication, not a condition of its validity — one that leads to a swifter answering or a more perfect response (istijābah): for example, giving precedence in supplication to forty believers; asking for supplications to be answered and presenting one’s needs while mentioning past blessings and thanking God Almighty for them; and mentioning acts of disobedience and sins and asking Him (s.w.t.) for forgiveness for them.(67) Matters such as these are among the conditions of the perfection of supplication, even if they are not among the conditions of its validity.

The two conditions that must be fulfilled in the supplicant, to which God (s.w.t.) pointed in the verse mentioned, are these:

1. That the supplication be real. Supplication is not truly realised unless the supplicant asks for what is in his interest (maṣlaḥah). If, for example, the supplicant asks in his supplication for his own destruction, this is an apparent asking, not a real one — as when a person wishes death for himself while angry. The noble verse ‘Man prays for ill as [avidly as] he prays for good’(68) makes clear that the human being sometimes prays for ill for himself, just as at other times he prays for good for himself.

Supplication, then, is not answered unless it is real: the human being insists on asking for what he asks, is actually in need of it, and his supplication contains nothing that does not fall within his real interest. If such a supplicant were told, for example, that what he asks for is not in his interest, and that the child he wishes for from God (s.w.t.) will be an unbeliever and may drag him along into Hell, or that the wealth he insists on asking for may be a cause of his punishment and suffering,(69) he might withdraw his supplication and stop demanding what he wanted.

One who supplicates and asks for something with entreaty, weeping and complaint, when what he asks for is neither wholesome nor in his interest, may shed tears outwardly, not inwardly; but he would not shed a single tear if he knew the reality hidden from him, and he would consequently never repeat the attempt. His state resembles that of a child unaware of his chronic illness, who weeps and cries out, asking his parents, for example, to buy him food that is harmful to him; were he rational, and did he know the inner reality of things and the harm that his request conceals for him, he would not have wept and insisted on asking. Hence it is not proper for the human being, in his supplication, to propose a matter to God (s.w.t.) and to assign Him a particular duty. As for what some narrations say about the necessity of asking God (s.w.t.) for everything that one needs,(70) what is meant is asking that is accompanied by good; for how many requests are not in the interest of the one who makes them: ‘Yet it may be that you dislike something, which is good for you, and it may be that you love something, which is bad for you, and Allah knows and you do not know’.(71) Accordingly, the narrations that speak of asking God Almighty even for the salt in one’s food(72) serve only to show the spirit of servanthood towards God (s.w.t.); but proposing requests to God and insisting on demands conflicts with the etiquette of supplication — that is an entirely different matter. For this reason we see the awliyāʾ of God and His elect submitting their affairs to God (s.w.t.) without objecting to Him: ‘Sufficient for me, of my asking, is His knowledge of my state’(73) — a supplication that stems from their courtesy and their worship. You do not see any of them complaining or grumbling, because their most important aim in supplication is worship and intimate converse with God (s.w.t.).

The human being ought, moreover, to ask God Almighty continually for good, felicity and lawful provision, which most of the transmitted supplications contain. Provision, however, is not limited to bread and meat: knowledge, understanding, courtesy, Godwariness, gnosis (maʿrifah) and prophethood are all considered part of God’s provision, for God (s.w.t.) has described prophethood in the Noble Qurʾān as good provision.(74)

It is of the grace of God (s.w.t.) that some effusions are bestowed on all (whether they like it or refuse it), such as the general provision that reaches the animals as well: ‘There is no animal on the earth, but that its sustenance lies with Allah’,(75) to which the Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī (a.s.) also pointed in his words: ‘And for everyone with a last breath of life there is sustenance, and for every grain an eater.’(76) Even so, there are some things that are not given to the human being until he has supplicated God with insistence and intense entreaty, such as lawful provision, spiritual stations and other divine favours and blessings.

The human being ought to ask God (s.w.t.) of His bounty, and ask that He increase him in His blessings, ‘And ask Allah for His bounty’,(77) rather than being content with the blessings and favours of God that he has. For God (s.w.t.) answers the supplication of the believers if it is sincere and stems from a pure and good intention; more than that, He increases them out of His bounty as well: ‘He answers [the supplications of] those who have faith and do righteous deeds and enhances them out of His grace’,(78) because the requests of the believer rest upon his interest, and God (s.w.t.) gives him what he asks in accordance with that interest.

2. Another of the conditions for the answering of supplication is sincerity (ikhlāṣ) in it, and asking and calling upon God alone; for God Almighty said, addressing His prophet ʿĪsā ibn Maryam (a.s.): ‘Ask Me, and do not ask other than Me’;(79) and He (s.w.t.) said in the verse under interpretation: ‘when he calls Me’ — that is, Me alone, without calling upon other than Me, or upon Me and other than Me together. In other words, He Almighty has promised to answer supplication if it belongs to the first part (that is, if he calls upon Me alone and has not called upon other than Me). The second and third divisions fall outside the scope of answering, although they are not included in the list of the threat (waʿīd). Accordingly, the promise of definite answering covers no kind of supplication except the first division only; yet it cannot be said that the other kinds of supplication are definitely not answered.

If a person believes in his depths that the source of effect and power is God (s.w.t.) together with work, tribe and clan, the farm, and his own abilities and capacities, then such a person’s supplication is not pure, and God Almighty has not promised to answer a supplication of this kind; and perhaps it is not answered for him either, for want of the cause that calls for its being answered. For all draw upon the grace of God (s.w.t.) and all of them are in need of Him: ‘O He who gives to whoever asks Him! O He who gives to whoever does not ask Him and does not know Him, out of tenderness from Him and mercy!’(81)

It is reported from the greatest Prophet (s.a.w.) that if a debtor supplicates with this supplication, ‘O God, make me free of need, by what You have made lawful, of what You have made unlawful, and by Your bounty of all besides You’,(82) God Almighty will settle all his debt for him. Al-Shaykh al-Bahāʾī (may his soul be sanctified) said that he tested the truth of this noble supplication when he persevered in it, and was able to pay off his debts in a record time, although he had not believed that he would one day be able to pay them all off.(83) Yet even this supplication, for all its greatness and sanctity, will not benefit one who recites it while feeling secure in and relying on his wealth, so that his reliance is on God (s.w.t.) and on the wealth he owns; in this case it may not be answered for the one who makes it, because he lacks the required sincerity.

In the noble verse, the phrase ‘when he calls Me’ is an explanatory adverbial (ẓarf tawḍīḥī) that explains what it qualifies, namely ‘the supplicant’s call’, and adds nothing to it; it only emphasises the answering of the call of the sincere supplicant.(84) Put differently, the phrase ‘when he calls Me’ serves only to state the subject (bayān al-mawḍūʿ), and the existence of the condition has no sense other than the realisation of the subject. Hence the verse carries no implied meaning (mafhūm): it does not mean to say that if someone does not call upon God (s.w.t.) He will not answer him. For as regards a person who calls upon other than God Almighty, it is natural that there is no necessity to answer him, just as there is no proof that it is necessary not to answer [him].

It is also worth pointing out here that this does not conflict with recourse (tawassul) to the Household (a.s.) and asking those luminous beings to resolve problems, as has come in some supplications; for recourse to them does not mean asking from other than God (s.w.t.) nor does it conflict with the sincerity which we said must be present in every supplication, since in those supplications the supplicant only makes those pure ones intermediaries between himself and God (s.w.t.) — and that by the command of God Himself.

The explanation is this: God Almighty possesses a holy Essence, and Names and Attributes; His Names and Attributes in turn possess manifestations; and the manifestation of any name has no effect outside the manifest name. God (s.w.t.) has made the manifestations of His Names and Attributes intermediaries between Himself and human beings, just as He has made worship of Him among the best of intermediaries. Hence there is no harm in recourse to the manifestations of those divine Names and Attributes within the framework of the intermediary, and this does not clash with tawḥīd. It is known that the active names (al-asmāʾ al-fiʿliyyah) are abstracted from contingent beings, and the pure Imams (a.s.) are contingent beings from whom it is possible to derive some names, such as the Sufficer (al-Kāfī), the Helper (al-Nāṣir), the Healer (al-Shāfī) and so on. Just as reciting the active names of the divine Essence does not mean calling upon other than God (s.w.t.) so calling upon the pure Imams (a.s.) and asking from them does not mean calling upon other than God or asking other than Him, inasmuch as they are the manifestation of all His active names (s.w.t.). We shall elaborate on this topic when we discuss the question of recourse.

The second condition, the supplicant’s sincerity, appears in various forms in many Qurʾānic verses, among them the following:

First: some verses are marked by a positive tone, such as:

1. Verses that point out that God is the One who answers the call of the supplicant, such as the verse under interpretation and His Almighty words: ‘Call Me, and I will hear you!’(85)

2. Verses that urge the human being to supplication and encourage him in it, such as His words (s.w.t.): ‘Supplicate your Lord, beseechingly and secretly. Indeed, He does not like the transgressors’,(86) and ‘supplicate Him with fear and hope: indeed Allah’s mercy is close to the virtuous’.(87)

These verses do not expressly state that God Almighty’s answering is inevitable, although the sense of a promise of answering is derived from them. For there is no sense in God the Wise asking people to supplicate and encouraging them in it without answering those supplications; such an act would count as futile (laghw), and far be it that futility should find its way to the absolutely Wise. The second verse resembles His Almighty words ‘Call Me, and I will hear you!’, with a difference in how the recompense, or the requital for it, is stated. Here, as in the cases in which the cause is mentioned in place of the omitted effect, the reason (ʿillah) has been given in the form of a nominal sentence in place of the requital and the effect (maʿlūl); that is, the nominal sentence ‘indeed Allah’s mercy is close to the virtuous’ makes clear what is meant by His Almighty words ‘I will hear you’.

Second: other verses have a negative character, indicating that everything other than God (s.w.t.) is incapable and therefore will not be able to answer the human being’s supplications, such as His words (s.w.t.): ‘Who is more astray than him who invokes besides Allah such [entities] as would not respond to him until the Day of Resurrection, and who are oblivious of their invocation?’(88) The phrase ‘until the Day of Resurrection’ is a metonymy for eternity and perpetuity, since with the coming of the Hour the matter of the idols and their worshippers will come to an end. The secret of the idols’ incapacity is this: since a thing is in itself incapable and lacking in power, and is not powerful by essence, those idols are incapable of doing anything; indeed, they are not [even] intermediaries for performing any particular action or deed at all.

Third: there is a category of verses coloured by both the positive and the negative sides at once, inasmuch as these verses regard God (s.w.t.) alone as the One able to answer supplication, negating any influence of others in that, such as the following verses:

1. ‘[Only] to Him belongs the true invocation; and those whom they invoke besides Him do not answer them in any wise—like someone who stretches his hands towards water [desiring] that it should reach his mouth, but it does not reach it’.(89) According to this noble verse, God Almighty is the owner of the true, valid, truthful and beneficial call, and He alone is able to answer. The true call is the call that the one called upon hears, listens to and then answers, whereas the call of falsehood has no effect, like any vain action. So for those who call upon what is other than God (s.w.t.), the one called upon in this case will not be able to solve any of their problems, since it is incapable of doing anything.

In this noble verse God (s.w.t.) describes the polytheists and the worshippers of idols as the thirsty and parched who stretch out their hands towards the water from afar, without coming near it and quenching their thirst from it, and who have no means at all of bringing the water of the spring or the well near to them. Submission to other than God (s.w.t.) and asking from the idols is thus a vain act, like stretching out one’s hands towards a distant source of water to take water and quench one’s thirst, without the hands reaching it; or like spreading one’s forearms on the edge of the well and bending down towards it, then opening one’s mouth and putting out one’s tongue to reach the water. Clearly, this will neither remove thirst nor quench parching without seeking the help of a firm rope and a bucket lowered into the well to draw water from it.

Having set out the parable, God (s.w.t.) pointed to the root of the thing likened, saying: ‘and the invocations of the faithless only go awry’; they are like one who has lost sight of the target yet insists on shooting his arrow, and there is no doubt that his arrow will miss the target.

2. ‘Is He who answers the call of the distressed [person] when he invokes Him and removes his distress, and makes you successors on the earth...? What! Is there a god besides Allah? Little is the admonition that you take’.(90) The word amman is composed of am and man; am is disjunctive (munqaṭiʿah) and means bal (“rather”). That is, the idols are not gods; rather, the god is the one who is able to answer the distressed, and He is the One who has made you successors on the earth; so is it permissible to associate anything else with God? But few people possess the capacity for reflection and perception.

The method of argument (istidlāl) in this verse is like that of the preceding and following verses, and it is logical, whether it is in the first figure or the second. It runs as follows: The idols do not solve any problem, and every being that is incapable of solving problems is not a god; therefore the idols are not gods. Rather, the god is the one who is able to solve problems, and these idols cannot do that; accordingly, these idols that are worshipped are not gods.

This verse is an explanation of His Almighty words ‘when he calls Me’: it means that if one of them calls upon God (s.w.t.) truly and sincerely — like a drowning person who finds no one other than God Almighty to rescue him from drowning — his supplication is certainly answered. This noble verse is in the station of argument, not of dividing supplicants into the distressed and the non-distressed, as if the answer were that God (s.w.t.) answers the distressed, while the non-distressed will be answered by other than God; for He (s.w.t.) is the One who answers both of them. But the distressed person, by the nature of his case, knows with the knowledge of certainty that God alone is able to answer him, whereas the non-distressed person either does not perceive that, or his perception is tainted with polytheism, so that he holds that other than God Almighty also has a role in answering.

The monotheist human being believes that the divine effusion (al-fayḍ al-ilāhī) is the sole intermediary for all that, and he says: ‘who created me, it is He who guides me, and provides me with food and drink, and when I get sick, it is He who cures me’;(91) if he is given any blessing, he attributes it to God Almighty alone, just as, if he is rescued from some calamity or trial, he confesses, saying: ‘And how many a stumble have You guarded [me] against!’;(92) and when a person says, like Imam al-Sajjād (a.s.), ‘O my bliss and my garden, O my world and my hereafter, O Most Merciful of the merciful!’,(93) this means that his faith in God (s.w.t.) has filled every atom of his existence. Hence we see him calling upon God Almighty sincerely and with all his being, and it is certain that He (s.w.t.) will answer him as swiftly as possible.

There is no doubt that everything other than God is actually in utter need of God. But one who does not perceive this utter need (iḍṭirār) — because his reliance, his dependence and all his hopes rest on other matters and things, such as lands, estates, wealth, bank credit and the like — calls upon none but them when he is in real need. As for the person who knows with certainty that he is in utter need and want, and sees every door closed in his face as he passes through hard times and critical periods, he calls upon none but God (s.w.t.) and seeks help from none but Him. In this regard, Imam Muḥammad al-Bāqir (a.s.) says: ‘When death came to ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn (a.s.), he pressed me to his breast, then said: O my son, I counsel you with what my father (a.s.) counselled me when death came to him, and with what he mentioned that his father had counselled him with. He said: O my son, beware of wronging one who finds no helper against you except God.’(94) For all wrongdoing is blameworthy, and the pasture of wrongdoing is unwholesome; so one who finds no protector for himself and no helper against his enemy except God (s.w.t.) must not be wronged, for such a wronged person will supplicate, with his tawḥīd-based sincerity, to be rescued from the wrong done to him, and supplications such as these are certainly answered, for ‘the call of the wronged is answered’.(95)

Reminder: From what al-Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (may God have mercy on him) mentioned in his tafsīr al-Tibyān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, it is understood that it is not permissible to qualify the answering of supplication by the [divine] will (mashīʾah), because that is among the things that remove the benefit of the promise.(96) It is worth pointing out here that the divine will rests on the foundation of wisdom and never departs from it; that is why the answering has been qualified by the will of God (s.w.t.) in the noble verse ‘… and He will remove that for which you supplicated Him, if He wishes’;(97) and this qualification comes down to [the point] that if the supplication conforms to wisdom it is certainly answered, because the purely Wise never does what contradicts wisdom.

Obstacles to the Answering of Supplication

Some matters are considered a condition for the granting (istijābah) of supplication, such as sincerity (ikhlāṣ), whose explanation has passed, while others represent obstacles and barriers that stand in the way of its answering, such as showing off (riyāʾ), rancour towards the believer, severing the ties of kinship and the like; if these come to be a pivot for supplication, its answering will not be realised.

The principal point lies in distinguishing between the condition of the answering and its obstacles, even though, in terms of the instance (miṣdāq), each of them applies to one specific thing, such as sincerity and showing off. This is exactly like considering purity a condition for the validity of prayer — ‘There is no prayer except with purification’(98) — while ritual impurity (ḥadath) is an obstacle to it; and likewise facing the qiblah is a condition of its validity, while turning one’s back [to it] invalidates it, and so on.

Sometimes the condition and the obstacle are not united in the instance, as with speaking or the deliberate [utterance of the] salām: these represent an obstacle to the validity of prayer, yet there is no relation at all between them and purity.

As for the detailed treatment of the obstacles to the answering — including the necessity of its being in the original element of the supplication, or its being an ugly attribute of the supplicant himself — it is to be found in the section on supplication. For example, the supplication of one who asks for the destruction of the wrongdoer is sometimes not granted if the supplicant himself is, for instance, characterised by this attribute (that is, wrongdoing). It is understood from His words Almighty, ‘Supplicate your Lord… Indeed, He does not like the transgressors’,(99) that the supplicant’s transgressing in supplication, in its manner or in its content constitutes an obstacle to the answering. How, then, can one who is a manifestation of the accursed Iblīs supplicate the All-Merciful?

Reminder: The supplications transmitted from the Household (a.s.) contain many teachings (maʿārif): some of them point to the conditions of the answering, while others mention the obstacles to the answering. Some obstacles to the answering appear, for example, in the Supplication of Abū Ḥamzah al-Thumālī, narrated from Imam al-Sajjād (a.s.), as follows: ‘… or perhaps You saw me making light of Your right, so You removed me far; or perhaps You saw me turning away from You, so You detested me; or perhaps You found me in the station of the liars, so You rejected me …’(100)

The following are some of the obstacles to the granting of supplication:

1. Turning to other than God Almighty. If a person supplicates truly and does not turn in his supplication to other than God (s.w.t.) his supplication will certainly be granted; this is considered a proof that cannot be refuted. The non-granting of a supplication, on the other hand, may be due to a specific matter, or to the supplication’s lacking the two aforementioned conditions, or to impurities connected with the supplication that are such as to cause its rejection and refusal. Since supplication is worship, if a part of this worship is mixed with showing off, for example, the worship in its entirety will be rejected and void — like a vessel holding a little water into which a drop of impure blood falls.

Showing off sometimes lies in the very core of the act of worship, as with showing off in bowing and prostration, which entails the invalidity of the whole act; at other times it lies outside that act of worship, as with showing off in wearing a kind of clothing in prayer. In this case the one who shows off has committed a sin, but if the showing off does not pass into the inside of his worship and does not touch the essence of his act, it will not be a cause for the invalidity of the act of worship. Wearing beautiful clothing merely to display wealth, beauty and the like is not considered showing off at all; and although a warning has come against wearing certain kinds of clothing particular to fame (shuhrah), that does not fall within the framework of showing off, even if the meaning of ostentation (murāʾāh) applies to it linguistically. Showing off is defined as any act that a person performs that is not purely for the sake of God, whereby he tries, through his conduct, his words and his acts, to make others understand that what he does is for the pleasure of God Almighty and in His way.

As for one whose supplication does not mingle with his spirit but has instead become a craft and a habit for him — one who is accustomed, for example, to supplication and intimate converse (munājāh) after every obligatory prayer, while during his supplication, and while asking God (s.w.t.) for any need he wants, his heart is reassured by material and ordinary causes — such a person does not in reality supplicate God sincerely and purely. He is unlike the person who supplicates none but God and is reassured only by what is with God, not by what he himself has: ‘… so be more trusting in what is in the hand of God, Mighty and Majestic, than in what is in your own hands.’(101) There is no doubt that the human being’s trust in what lies in the treasuries of the divine unseen, rather than in what is in his own hands, is a decisive proof of his renunciation (zuhd) and a cause necessitating sincerity in his supplication.

2. That the supplication is not in the supplicant’s interest. What the supplicant requests from God (s.w.t.) may in some cases not accord with his interest; had he known the harm that would befall him if his request were given to him, he would not insist in asking. Hence God, the Wise, the Compassionate, wants nothing but the good and the welfare of His servants, and therefore He does not grant this kind of supplication.

The temporary interest of some may lie in material need, and the seasonal welfare of others in their safety and well-being, as has come in the noble Ḥadīth Qudsī, in His words Almighty: ‘… For among My believing servants is one whom nothing sets right but poverty, and were I to make him rich, that would corrupt him; and among My servants is one whom nothing sets right but health, and were I to make him ill, that would corrupt him … And that is because I manage My servants by what sets them right, and I am Subtle with them, All-Aware.’(102)

Poverty, illness, weakness, incapacity and the like are undesirable matters; but sometimes, when the matter concerns escaping grave dangers, they come to hold a relative benefit. Among such cases is our master al-Khiḍr (a.s.) making a hole in the boat that carried him and our master Moses (a.s.);(103) had he not done so, the tyrannical ruler would have seized it, as has come in that story.(104)

3. Not knowing God. Among the causes that prevent God Almighty’s granting of supplication is not knowing Him in the required way. That is what Imam al-Ṣādiq (a.s.) said in answer to a question about why God does not grant some supplications: ‘Because you supplicate One whom you do not know.’(105)

So one who does not have complete knowledge of the One he supplicates places God among the other causes and intermediaries, saying: God and the people (al-khalq), or God and rank and status; and this in itself is a kind of polytheism (shirk). If, however, the supplicant cuts himself off from all causes and knows that God (s.w.t.) is the first and the last influencing [agent] — ‘He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden’(106) — his supplication will be granted.

Note: It is clear that the condition of knowing God differs from the condition of sincerity in supplication and its preventing [one from] turning to other than God (s.w.t.)(107) (mentioned in the first paragraph), even though that knowledge may be shared in some respects, and likewise in terms of the expressions used.

4. Supplication in the absence of effort. There is no doubt that the system of existence is founded on effort and striving, and that reaching the goal requires adopting suitable means. Supplication, then, will not be effective without effort and striving, and consequently the supplication of the idle person is not granted.(108) This means that laziness, idleness and sluggishness are all obstacles to the answering, because the meaning of the sluggish person’s supplication is: ‘My God, change Your custom (sunnah) and nullify it!’ Yet God (s.w.t.) created the earth in accordance with His custom and subjected it to the human being, so that he may walk on it and seek his provision: ‘It is He who made the earth tractable for you; so walk on its flanks and eat of His provision’.(109) This work, clearly, is not easy; for what is meant by His words Almighty ‘its flanks’ is the mountains and the mines,(110) which must first be brought under control and subjected before provision can be extracted from them, since not all of the earth is suitable for agriculture.

This is on one side. On the other, a person’s relying on his own work and depending on his efforts is incompatible with sincerity in supplication and with tawḥīd. For tawḥīd in supplication means that the human being uses the means by God Almighty’s permission, and likewise asks Him for what is sought. That is what our master Joseph the Truthful (a.s.) did when he was thrown into the depths of the well: he asked God (s.w.t.) for deliverance, but at the same time took hold of the rope that was lowered to him, and so was able to get out of the well. His holding the rope and clinging to it was nothing but a means by which it was possible for him to be brought out of the well, and that too was only by the command of God (s.w.t.).

We may point to an exemplary instance of combining supplication with undertaking the appropriate action, from the health, curative, economic and other aspects, in this short story: The Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) passed by a Bedouin who had a mangy she-camel beside him. The Imam (a.s.) said to him: ‘Will you not treat her?’ He said: ‘Yes indeed, O Commander of the Faithful, I am treating her.’ The Imam said: ‘With what?’ The Bedouin said: ‘With supplication!’ The Imam said: ‘Put some tar(111) with the supplication!’(112)

Responding to God Alone

The degrees of nearness (qurb), answering (ijābah), responding (istijābah) and faith in God mentioned in the verse we are interpreting differ. This difference also extends to the supplicant’s supplication, and it leads to a difference in the ranks and degrees of the supplicants.

No one is unaware that if a person is not granted success in obtaining an answer to his supplication from God (s.w.t.) he will be unable to do anything at all, just as that person is not outside the domain of God Almighty’s power. The most reliable proof of this statement is the blessed verse: ‘Those who do not respond to Allah’s summoner cannot frustrate [Allah] on the earth, and they will not find any protectors besides Him’.(113)

In sum, the sincere (al-mukhlaṣīn) friends (awliyāʾ) of God, who knew God by their saying, ‘Through You I knew You, and You guided me to You’, know that responding and answering are for God alone — complying with His commands and submitting to His words: ‘So let them respond to Me, and let them have faith in Me’ — not out of greed for anything or fear of another. Rather, even faith in God comes only by His permission and His will, not by reason or inference. So when the true believer says, ‘Through You I knew You’, he is the one who also says: ‘Through You I believed in You, not through myself, my deed and my reason …’. This sincere monotheist (muwaḥḥid) has thus believed in God (s.w.t.) by means of divine witnessing (shuhūd), which likewise occurs only through seeing the malakūt, by God Almighty’s permission and command.(114)

Allusions and Subtleties

1. Supplication, the Decree and Destiny

The decree (qaḍāʾ) and destiny (qadar) are two real, accepted matters: God (s.w.t.) measured out all matters from pre-eternity, and He knows them all. Supplication likewise falls within the framework of the decree and destiny, not opposite them, because badāʾ(115) is a part of the world of nature (matter), which is the locus of motion, change and transformation.(116) This means that God (s.w.t.) measured out that if such-and-such a supplication is realised, or a certain person’s charity is accepted, or [someone] acts by maintaining the ties of kinship, and so on, then such-and-such a corresponding act will certainly be accomplished; and God (s.w.t.) knows beforehand that such-and-such a person will supplicate and be granted his supplication, and that another person will likewise supplicate, but his supplication will not be granted. Thus there is no doubt in God Almighty’s knowledge, and perplexity and anxiety have no existence in the world of existence.

In other words, two points are connected with this matter:

1. The domain of the Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation. God (s.w.t.) ordered all matters with their causes and reasons from pre-eternity, and among the causes connected with the world of nature are supplication, the giving of charity and the like. Supplication, which is the causing factor, operates to bring about change in some matters in the lower section of the Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation, not among the fixed immaterial [beings] (al-mujarradāt al-thābitah) that are protected from change.

2. The domain of the Preserved Tablet (the Mother Book). This is the world of the pure and determined decree, and it is higher than the domain of transformation and the field of the Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation. In this domain — where everything is preserved and protected from change and cessation, and [marked by] the inevitability of occurrence — supplication, charity or anything other than them has no effect at all. For example, the very principle of the human being’s death is recorded in the Preserved Tablet, and absolutely no one is exempted from this determined divine decree, according to the noble verse ‘Every soul shall taste death’;(117) but the specified lifespan of every human being and the time of his death are subject to change in the Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation. God (s.w.t.) alone knows that such-and-such a person’s life will be long because of his good conduct, his choice, his supplication and his persistence in maintaining the ties of kinship, while another person will be deprived of this blessing because of his bad conduct, his disobedience to his parents, or his severing of his ties of kinship, and so on.

With this interpretation, no room remains for the doubt (shubhah) of compulsion (jabr);(118) for every matter is susceptible to change and alteration as long as it has not reached the limit of the complete cause, at which point it comes to be within the framework of the divine decree that is not susceptible to change and alteration. And if God (s.w.t.) knew that a person would give a certain charity or supplicate with a specific supplication, that is considered among the principles of his choice.

Reminder: From the noble verse ‘It is He who created you from clay, then ordained the term [of your life]—the specified term is with Him—and yet you are in doubt’(119) it is understood what the meaning of the decree is, and whether or not some kinds of decree are susceptible to change. For the decreed term (al-ajal al-maqḍī) stands opposite the specified term (al-ajal al-musammā); the latter is known only to God, and whatever is with God is permanent: ‘but what is with Allah shall last’;(120) and since opposition prevents sharing, the decreed term is susceptible to change. We note that we will conclude this discussion in its details in our exegesis of the second verse of Sūrat al-Anʿām.(121)

2. Supplication and the Irrevocable Decree

Supplication is considered one of the effects of the divine act; that is, the act of God (s.w.t.) in this mode of existence (nashʾah) conforms to the receptivities and capacities of individuals, and the supplicant’s supplication here represents one of the active conditions for realising the threshold (niṣāb) of power and preparedness.

Almighty said: ‘and seek the means of recourse to Him’;(122) thus the obligatory acts, and every good deed that the human being performs to draw near to God (s.w.t.) are considered a means (wasīlah): ‘No servant draws near to Me with anything more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him’(123) — although some means, such as faith in the Lordship of God (s.w.t.): ‘and seeks recourse to You through Your Lordship’,(124) wilāyah: ‘and we are the means to God’,(125) and the confession of sins: ‘for I have made confession of sin to You my means’(126) — are, I say, textually stipulated and stronger than the others.

As for the measure of the effect that each means produces, it, too, is measured and defined according to a general principle; for God (s.w.t.) does nothing except by His wisdom, and no means can change the course of that wisdom of His: ‘O He whose wisdom is not altered by means!’(127) So if God’s wisdom wills a thing, for example, or decrees a matter, then neither supplication, nor recourse (tawassul), nor charity, nor maintaining the ties of kinship, nor any other thing will have the power to bring about an effect or a change in it. Accordingly, three important points must be attended to here:

1. The answering of supplication is according to what wisdom requires.(128)

2. If a thing reaches its complete cause, it cannot be changed by any means. This means that if what wisdom requires reaches the threshold of the complete cause, the irrevocable decree (al-qaḍāʾ al-mubram) will inevitably be realised, and it is impossible for any advancing or delaying to occur in it, as in His words Almighty: ‘when their time comes, they shall not defer it by a single hour nor shall they advance it’;(129) for the Agent grants His effusion only in accordance with receptivities and preparednesses, and the one to whom it is granted has lost his receptivity and his preparedness. In this case the supplication will not have the expected and desired effect, even if the Greatest Messenger (s.a.w.) himself supplicated for him, as in His words (s.w.t.): ‘It is the same for them whether you plead for forgiveness for them, or do not plead for forgiveness for them: Allah will never forgive them. Indeed Allah does not guide the transgressing lot’.(130) For all the doors of repentance were open to the polytheists during their lives, and it is they who caused them to be closed through the evil of their choices and their conduct; therefore even the Prophet’s (s.a.w.) supplication will not benefit them after their death, despite the effect of that supplication for the supplicant.

3. If the conditions for the realisation of a thing are complete but its obstacles have not ceased — that is, it remains within the framework of the requirement (iqtiḍāʾ), not the complete cause — then it is not yet irrevocable; and here supplication, charity, maintaining the ties of kinship and so on will have an effect on it.

In view of the three aforementioned points, what is meant by some narrations stating that supplication can change the irrevocable decree as well — ‘Supplication repels the decree, even when it has descended from heaven and has been made firmly irrevocable’(131) — is the possibility of supplication’s being able to change the decree, even if the latter has reached the limits of the complete cause and the full threshold. There is no doubt that the meaning of ‘irrevocability’ (al-ibrām) in the saying of the Imam (a.s.), ‘and has been made firmly irrevocable’, is relative irrevocability, that is, that which is on the verge of completion. The proof of that, and the common denominator of all the narrations, is what has been transmitted from Imam al-Kāẓim (a.s.): ‘Hold fast to supplication; for supplication to God and asking of God repels affliction, even when it has been measured out and decreed and nothing remains but its execution. So when God, Mighty and Majestic, is supplicated and asked, He turns the affliction completely away.’(132)

Discussion of the Narrations

1. The Occasion of Revelation

It is narrated that a Bedouin said to the Messenger of God (s.a.w.): ‘Is our Lord near, so that we may converse with Him intimately, or far, so that we may call out to Him?’ Then [the verse] was sent down: ‘When My servants ask you about Me, [tell them that] I am indeed nearmost …’.(133)

And from ʿAlī (a.s.), who said: ‘The Messenger of God (s.a.w.) said: “Do not be incapable of supplication, for God has sent down to me: ‘Call Me, and I will hear you!’” A man said: “O Messenger of God, does our Lord hear the supplication, or how is that?” So God sent down: ‘When My servants ask you about Me, [tell them that] I am indeed nearmost’.’(134)

Note: a. Since God (s.w.t.) is pure and infinite existence, He (s.w.t.) is present in everything, whatever the circumstances and situations may be; hence it is not valid to suppose distance and absence with respect to the infinite reality.

b. If the human being is a believer and aware, he will be able to perceive the divine nearness; but if he is an atheist and blind, he will be incapable even of perceiving and understanding the root of His existence — let alone perceiving the nearness of God Almighty — even though his summary (ijmālī) and innate (fiṭrī) knowledge of God (s.w.t.) remains as it is, for God is an absolute reality that cannot be denied. These are the ones who are far from God and heedless of perceiving Him: ‘they were called from a distant place’.(135)

c. As we said previously, it is not unlikely that such a question should be raised by the Bedouins (al-aʿrāb) who worshipped idols, or by the Children of Israel, the adherents of the sensory school, who were accustomed to foolish sayings, such as their saying: ‘Show us Allah visibly’(136) and ‘we will not believe you until we see Allah visibly’.(137)

2. The Emphasis of the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) on Supplication

Imam ʿAlī (a.s.) said: ‘And know that He in whose hand are the treasuries of the heavens and the earth has permitted you to supplicate, and has guaranteed you the answering, and has commanded you to ask Him so that He may give to you, and to make requests of Him so that He may satisfy you, and to ask His mercy so that He may have mercy on you … and He has not placed between you and Him anyone who would veil you from Him, nor has He compelled you to [resort to] one who would intercede for you with Him, nor has He prevented you, if you have done evil, from repentance … nor has He reproached you for turning back [to Him] (al-inābah) … So when you call Him, He hears your call, and when you converse intimately with Him, He knows your intimate converse; so you have laid your need before Him … So whenever you wish, you can open the doors of His blessing by supplication, and seek the downpours of His mercy to rain down … And let not the slowness of His answering make you despair, for the gift is according to the measure of the intention(138) … So let your request of God Almighty be for what concerns you, of that whose beauty remains for you and whose evil consequence is removed from you; for wealth does not remain for you, nor do you remain for it.’(139)

Note: The letter which the Imam (a.s.) wrote to his son al-Ḥasan (a.s.) contains some important points, among them:

a. What is meant by the treasuries of the heavens and the earth is the divine will: ‘All His command, when He wills something, is to say to it “Be,” and it is’;(140) what is meant is not some side of the sky used as a storehouse for the origination of things, as some may think. For it is narrated that our master Moses (a.s.) said, addressing his Lord: ‘Lord, show me Your treasuries.’ He said: ‘O Moses, My treasuries are, when I will something, that I say to it “Be,” and it is.’(141)

So the beings that we see in the world of nature likewise possess an existence in the mode of existence (nashʾah) of immateriality, which exists neither in the heaven nor in the earth. The treasuries of God (s.w.t.) are therefore those immaterial luminous beings that represent the locus of manifestation of the will of the Real Almighty, and from them the divine grace descends. The fixed immaterial beings are considered a repository and a storehouse for the material and changing beings: ‘There is not a thing but that its sources are with Us, and We do not send it down except in a known measure’,(142)(143) except that their being a storehouse is relative, not intrinsic (nafsī), because in themselves they represent another storehouse. As for the treasury of all the storehouses, it is the infinite power of God Almighty and His eternal (azalī) will, which is considered the foundation of, and the factor in, the realisation of what is willed by the mere connection [of the will to it].

In the aforementioned letter, the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) addresses his son al-Ḥasan (a.s.), pointing out that the God in whose hand are the treasuries of the heavens and the earth has permitted and allowed you to supplicate Him: ‘And know that He in whose hand are the treasuries of the heavens and the earth has permitted you to supplicate.’ This means that He (s.w.t.) has handed the keys of those treasuries over to the human being.

b. No veils or obstacles of any kind exist that can stand between the human being and his Lord, except the human being’s own deeds, his acts and his egoism (anāniyyah). Hence the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) says: ‘and He has not placed between you and Him anyone who would veil you from Him’; and on this Imam al-Sajjād (a.s.) says: ‘And that You do not veil Yourself from Your creation, except that deeds veil them [from reaching] You.’(144)

Al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī said:

I said: Who has hidden Your beauty from me?
He said: Rather, you are the veil — so here it is before you!(145)

There is no veil between the beloved and the lover;
you yourself are your own veil, O Ḥāfiẓ, so awaken.(146)

There is no curtain over the beauty of the beloved, nor any veil;
so remove the dust from yourself, that you may see the wonder of wonders.(147)

It is self-evident that the human being’s seeking the intercession of the infallible ones (a.s.) and his recourse (tawassul) to them does not mean placing a veil between himself and God (s.w.t.); for the intercessor is like a wing for the wayfarer and the seeker, and Imam ʿAlī (a.s.) has said: ‘The intercessor is the wing of the seeker.’(148) The infallible ones (a.s.) are thus the intermediaries of grace and the human being’s means for obtaining their intercession, and he is not compelled to do so: ‘nor has He compelled you to [resort to] one who would intercede for you with Him’.

c. Turning back [to God] (al-inābah) is higher and loftier than repentance (al-tawbah), because inābah means repeated returning, if we take its source (maṣdar) to be hollow and wāwī, or devotion (inqiṭāʿ) to God (s.w.t.) if we take its source to be hollow and yāʾī. Both meanings are loftier and higher than repentance, and God (s.w.t.) does not take the servant to task for the frequency of his returning, his turning back and his devotion to Him: ‘nor has He reproached you for turning back [to Him]’.

At the beginning of his path, when he feels that he is far from God (s.w.t.), the wayfarer converses with his Lord and calls Him, saying ‘O God’ and ‘O Lord’; and God Almighty hears his call: ‘So when you call Him, He hears your call’. As he continues on the spiritual journey and ascends to new stations, the wayfarer then feels that he has become nearer to God (s.w.t.) than before, so he converses with Him intimately, and God hears his intimate converse and knows of it: ‘and when you converse intimately with Him, He knows your intimate converse’ — here it is knowledge, not hearing, that enters into the domain of intimate converse, since that is the abode of knowledge, not of hearing.

The stage of the intimate converse of God (s.w.t.) with His servant is considered higher and loftier than the stage of the servant’s intimate converse with his Lord: ‘And make me among those whom You called and he answered You, and whom You glanced at and he swooned before Your majesty, so You conversed with him intimately in secret, and he acted for You openly.’(149) This is absolutely the highest of the stages of the human journey: there the servant’s intimate converse with his Lord and his calling to Him come to an end, he becomes worthy of God Almighty’s regard for him, and he becomes bewildered (without having lost awareness); and God (s.w.t.) converses with him with gentleness and deliberateness. Concerning this, the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) says that since your Lord has begun by hearing your speech and listening to your intimate converse, inform Him of your need, and tell Him what you want and what you seek: ‘so you have laid your need before Him’. It is narrated from Imam al-Sajjād (a.s.) that he said: ‘The Prophet (s.a.w.) heard a man saying: “O Most Merciful of the merciful!” So he took hold of the man’s shoulder and said: “This is the Most Merciful of the merciful; He has turned His face towards you; ask your need.”’(150) But, by the nature of the case, it is the Prophet (s.a.w.) who is able to discern this meaning, which is the inclusion of the care of God (s.w.t.) for His servant or for the wayfaring person.

d. The Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) warns his son al-Ḥasan (a.s.) against the consequence of despair and hopelessness should God Almighty not respond to his supplication, and urges him to reform and refine himself; for the axis of response is the request made, first, by the tongue of state and preparedness and, second, with pure intention, and not mere speech and supplication: ‘for the gift is according to the measure of the intention’, since ‘every man shall have what he intended’.(151) There is no doubt that the effect of the tongue of speech is weaker. That is because the human being sometimes asks with his tongue (not with the tongue of his state and his preparedness and the purity of his intention) for some things that are not in his interest, so God Almighty rewards him, in return for his supplication, by repelling affliction from him or by raising his rank.

At the close of his words, Imam ʿAlī (a.s.) counsels his son to ask of God (s.w.t.) what removes from him evil consequence, burden and suffering, and preserves its beauty for him, for wealth and rank are both passing: ‘So let your request of God Almighty be for what concerns you, of that whose beauty remains for you and whose evil consequence is removed from you; for wealth does not remain for you, nor do you remain for it.’ It is worth pointing out here that the beauty of the human being lies in his intellect and his thinking: ‘The intellects of women are in their beauty, and the beauty of men is in their intellects.’(152)

3. The Light of the Heavens and the Earth

From al-Riḍā (a.s.), from his fathers (a.s.), from the Messenger of God (s.a.w.), that he said: ‘Supplication is the weapon of the believer, the pillar of religion, and the light of the heavens and the earth.’(153)

Note: a. Just as a weapon is necessary and important in the lesser jihād, so sighing (al-taʾawwuh), supplication and complaint are necessary in the middle and greater jihāds for one who knows of the enemy of humankind (Satan the accursed) — and [the enemy] sees him while he does not see [the enemy] — and is able to repel that enemy and expel him from the precinct of the soul and the region of the heart. Turning (al-inābah) to God (s.w.t.) and reliance upon Him in all matters is thus the most powerful and effective of weapons.

b. Religion — which comprises a set of beliefs, moral matters, rulings and rights — is not set straight, nor established in practice, unless the one who holds it is among the people of supplication and intimate converse; for connection with God (s.w.t.) includes many factors, and supplication represents one of the greatest and strongest of them. The supplicant’s supplication, his seeking from God alone, and his independence from all besides Him is what illuminates the path for him in this world; and it is the light from which the heaven and the earth draw their light: ‘Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth’;(154) both of them see this radiant truth, and hence both say, in confession: ‘We come obediently’.(155)

4. The Effect of Supplication

From Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.), who said: ‘Supplication repels the decree, and the believer commits a sin and is deprived of provision because of his sin.’(156)

The Messenger of God (s.a.w.) said: ‘Treat your sick with charity, repel the gates of affliction with supplication, and fortify your wealth with zakāh; for no bird that is hunted is hunted except through their neglecting glorification (al-tasbīḥ).’(157)

And from the Prophet (s.a.w.), that he said: ‘Turn in alarm to God in your needs, take refuge with Him in your calamities, humble yourselves before Him and call upon Him; for supplication is the marrow of worship, and there is no believer who calls upon God but He responds [to him]: either He hastens it for him in this world, or He defers it for him to the Hereafter, or He expiates for him [some] of his sins to the measure of what he supplicated, so long as he does not supplicate for a sinful thing.’(158)

Note: a. Supplication is able to remove the irrevocable and non-irrevocable decree that is on the edge of the perfection of irrevocability but has not yet reached the threshold of the complete cause;(159) the explanation of what this means, and the inference from the narrations, have already been given in our discussion in (Allusions and Subtleties).

b. Supplication is considered a receptive means (wasīlah qābiliyyah); it has no independent effect or active (fāʿilī) influence, because the return of all matters is to God (s.w.t.) alone. Supplication’s being a means can be likened to a clear example: the treatment of a sick person. For it is God Almighty who leads the sick person, or guides the one responsible for him, to go to a specific doctor rather than another; it is He who inspires the treating doctor [to know] the illness and acquaints him with the medicine needed to eliminate it; it is He who keeps the pharmacist from committing an error in preparing and compounding the medicine; it is He who makes the nurse firm in giving the medicine to the sick person at the appropriate time and in the correct form; and it is He who commands the sick person’s digestive system and prepares it to receive the medicine and manifest its effects. As for the role of supplication here, it lies in seeking help from God (s.w.t.); but one cannot, through it, dispense with the mercy of God at all. There is no doubt that the least that can be obtained, other than what we have mentioned, is the repelling of affliction, the attainment of reward in the Hereafter, and the forgiveness of sins.

c. It is clear that the servant’s confession that he is in need of God Almighty from his head to the sole of his foot, that God (s.w.t.) is the Rich by essence, and that He alone is able to meet the needs of all the servants, is pure worship, whose owner God (s.w.t.) will never leave without reward and recompense, in accordance with what he deserves. For example, if the servant asks his Lord to grant him a righteous child, and that request accords with his interest and conforms with divine wisdom, then God, the Mighty, the Merciful, will prepare for this servant the means of marriage, a dwelling and the cost of living, and then provide him with the righteous child he sought, in addition to granting him reward for his supplication. If that is not originally in his interest, God (s.w.t.) will compensate him in return for his supplication — which in itself represents worship — in one of the following three ways: either He forgives him a part or a portion of his sins, or He multiplies [reward] for him in his good deeds, or He repels from him one of the afflictions;(160) and the supplicant’s interest may lie in something other than what he seeks, though he is ignorant of it and does not know it, so God Almighty grants him that. The hand that is raised to God (s.w.t.) will therefore never come down empty of the Bountiful (khāliyat al-fayyāḍ);(161) rather, it will be filled with God’s favours, which do not end. For this reason it is recommended that the one supplicating raise his hands upwards (this is what is described as the representation of the intelligible in the sensible), and then wipe his face with them: ‘No servant stretches out his hand to God, the Mighty, the Compeller, but God, Mighty and Majestic, is ashamed to return it empty until He places in it of the bounty of His mercy what He wills; so when one of you supplicates, let him not return his hand until he wipes his face and his head [with it].’(162)

5. Supplication and the Expansion of Provision

The Messenger of God (s.a.w.) said: ‘Provision descends from the heaven to the earth to the number of the drops of rain, to every soul according to what He has measured out for it; but God has surpluses, so ‘ask Allah for His bounty’.’(163)

Al-Ṣādiq (a.s.) said: ‘God has made the provisions of the believers from where they do not reckon; and that is because the servant, when he does not know the source of his provision, his supplication becomes abundant.’(164)

Note: a. The Lordship of God (s.w.t.) encompasses all things and persons in this world. Perhaps the most prominent example of His Lordship (s.w.t.) over every existent is His guarantee of its provision, for He (s.w.t.) has undertaken to give provision to all existents, so that even scorpions and snakes are not deprived of His provision: ‘There is no animal on the earth, but that its sustenance lies with Allah’.(165) By means of supplication the human being can increase his provision in quantity and kind, especially spiritual provisions such as wisdom, jurisprudence (fiqh), morals and others.

b. As for one’s saying, for example: ‘My God, I do not know whose provision this which is in my hand will be, and I do not know in whose hand my provision will be’ — [it is] so that the human being does not rely on what he possesses and feel secure in what he has, and likewise so that he does not forget supplication; for abandoning supplication, and relying and depending on the self, leads to destruction and to the evil end which Qārūn reached, who said: ‘I have indeed been given [all] this because of the knowledge that I have’.(166) In sum, the human being’s obtaining his provision from where he did not expect or know can likewise be a cause of his being urged and drawn towards the world of the Unseen, so that he does not feel secure in the world of the Witnessed (ʿālam al-shahādah) as he feels secure in the world of the Unseen.

6. Sincerity in Supplication

In the sacred ḥadīth (al-ḥadīth al-qudsī) there has come His saying (s.w.t.): ‘O Moses, ask Me for everything you need, even the fodder of your sheep and the salt of your dough.’(167)

And from Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq, from his fathers (a.s.), from the Prophet (s.a.w.), who said: ‘God, Mighty and Majestic, revealed to one of His prophets, in some of His revelation to him: “By My might and My majesty, I shall surely cut off with despair the hope of every hoper who hopes in other than Me, and I shall surely clothe him in the garment of abasement in the Fire, and I shall surely distance him from My relief and My bounty. Does My servant hope in other than Me in hardships, when hardships are in My hand? Or does he place his hope in other than Me, when I am the Rich, the Generous; in My hand are the keys of the doors, and they are locked, and My door is open to whoever calls on Me?”’(168)

Note: a. According to the unity of acts (al-tawḥīd al-afʿālī), the human being is perpetually in need in all his material and spiritual affairs, and no existent is independent in [exercising] influence, whatever its situation and state may be. This monotheistic view requires every perfect monotheist to seek everything from God, as our master Moses, the one who conversed with God (a.s.), did under the shade of the teachings of revelation, despite [the fact] that God (s.w.t.) administers the affairs of the world on the basis of the system of causes and effects. We find this sublime monotheistic matter in the words of the Friend of God, our master Abraham (a.s.), where he said: ‘… and provides me with food and drink, and when I get sick, it is He who cures me’.(169)

b. Sincerity in supplication does not mean ignoring the effect of the outward causes; rather, we must not consider them independent in [their] influence; then [there must be] non-reliance upon them, and the confession that the outward causes are only channels of grace for the true Cause, who is God (s.w.t.).

So whoever sits at the table of God (s.w.t.) and seeks from Him the principle of life and perfection, while at the same time relying on other than Him, God Almighty will entrust him to himself; and it is certain that the end of such a creature will be loss and far-reaching error.

7. The True Promise

Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Naṣr: He said: I said to Abū al-Ḥasan (a.s.): May I be made your ransom! I have asked God for a need for such-and-such a number of years, and something [of doubt] has entered my heart because of its delay. So he said: ‘O Aḥmad … tell me about yourself: if I said something to you, would you trust me in it?’ So I said to him: May I be made your ransom! If I did not trust your word, then whom would I trust, when you are God’s proof over His creation? He said: ‘Then be more trusting in God, for you are upon an appointment (mawʿid) from God. Does not God, Mighty and Majestic, say: ‘When My servants ask you about Me, [tell them that] I am indeed nearmost. I answer the supplicant’s call when he calls Me’; and He said: ‘do not despair of the mercy of Allah’;(170) and He said: ‘But Allah promises you His forgiveness and bounty’?(171) So be more trusting in God, Mighty and Majestic, than you are in anything other than Him, and do not place anything but good in yourselves, for you will be forgiven.’(172)

Note: Breaking a promise (khulf al-waʿd) is impossible for God (s.w.t.). The meaning of this impossibility is the impossibility of such an act issuing from Him (s.w.t.) not [an impossibility imposed] upon Him, for He Almighty is not governed by any ruling. The cause of this impossibility is that breaking a promise arises from ignorance, inattention, forgetfulness, incapacity or miserliness, all of which are counted among the deficiencies belonging to the negative attributes of God Almighty [i.e. those negated of Him], and it is impossible for God to be qualified by them. Hence breaking the promise is impossible for God (s.w.t.).

The greater one’s knowledge of tawḥīd and the more perfect one’s faith in God, the greater one’s reassurance in the promise of God (s.w.t.); and there is no doubt that His words ‘Behold! The hearts find rest in Allah’s remembrance!’(173) point to all those teachings (maʿārif).

8. The Secret of the Slowness in the Answering of Some Supplications

Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Naṣr, from Abū al-Ḥasan (a.s.), in a ḥadīth, that Abū Jaʿfar (a.s.) used to say: ‘The believer asks God, Mighty and Majestic, for a need, and He postpones the hastening of its answering out of love for his voice and for hearing his plaintive weeping (naḥīb).’ Then he said: ‘By God, what God, Mighty and Majestic, has delayed for the believers of what they seek of this world [is better for them].’(174)(175)

And Manṣūr al-Ṣayqal: He said: I said to Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.): It may be that a man supplicates with a supplication and it is answered for him, then that is delayed until a [later] time. He said: So he said: ‘Yes.’ I said: And why is that — so that he may increase in supplication? He said: ‘Yes.’(176)

And from Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.): He said: ‘The believer calls upon God, Mighty and Majestic, in his need, and God, Mighty and Majestic, says: “Delay his answering, out of longing for his voice and his supplication.” Then, when it is the Day of Resurrection, God, Mighty and Majestic, says: “My servant, you called upon Me and I delayed your answering, and your reward is such-and-such; and you called upon Me about such-and-such, and I delayed your answering, and your reward is such-and-such.”’ He said: ‘So the believer wishes that not a single supplication of his had been answered in this world, because of the excellent reward that he sees.’(177)

And the Messenger of God (s.a.w.) said: ‘There is no Muslim who calls upon God, Glorified is He, with a supplication in which there is neither the severing of kinship nor sin, but God gives him by it one of three things: either He hastens his supplication [i.e. its answer], or He stores it up for him, or He averts from him an evil like it …(178) or He expiates for him of his sins to the measure of what he supplicated.’

Note: a. There is no doubt that the hearing of the supplicant’s supplication by God (s.w.t.) and His listening to him represent the greatest answering of that supplication. For when God (s.w.t.) is pleased with something and delights in it at the station of action (not the station of the Essence), there is no doubt that all existents will strive to win the pleasure of that person (the supplicant), to make him happy and to delight him — let alone God (s.w.t.) answering his supplication if His wisdom requires it. But if his supplication does not accord with divine wisdom, He Almighty will not disappoint his striving; rather, He will please him with one of the three things to which the Greatest Messenger (s.a.w.) pointed.

b. Delay in the answering of supplication may prolong the supplicant’s suffering, but that must not cause him to think ill of God (s.w.t.) because of our ignorance of the wisdom behind it. It is well known that answering supplications constantly and without interruption is liable to efface the purity and importance of the act; and so the supplicant’s benefit (maṣlaḥah) may lie in the delay of the answering.

9. Supplication in All States

Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Naṣr: He said: I said to Abū al-Ḥasan (a.s.): May I be made your ransom! I have asked God for a need for such-and-such a number of years, and something [of doubt] has entered my heart because of its delay. So he said: ‘O Aḥmad, beware of Satan’s having a way over you, so that he makes you despair. Abū Jaʿfar (a.s.) used to say: … The believer’s supplication in ease ought to be like his supplication in hardship; he should not, when he is given, slacken. So do not weary of supplication, for it has a [high] standing with God, Mighty and Majestic. And hold to patience, the seeking of the lawful and the maintaining of kinship; and beware of open confrontation with people (mukāshafat al-nās). For we, the People of the House, join whoever cuts us off and do good to whoever does us wrong, and, by God, we see the good outcome in that. The one who enjoys blessing in this world, when he asks and is given, seeks something other than what he asked, and the blessing becomes small in his eyes, so he is not sated by anything; and when blessings multiply, the Muslim is, because of that, in peril on account of the rights that become binding on him and the trial (fitnah) that is feared in them.’(179)

Note: A wealthy person may be exposed to need and bankruptcy at any moment, while a poor, destitute human being may await a flourishing future; therefore supplication in prosperity must be exactly like supplication in adversity.

10. The Necessity of the Supplicant’s Nearness to the One Who Answers

From the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.): He said: ‘… So be on your guard before God, Mighty and Majestic, through much remembrance, and fear Him through Godwariness (al-tuqā), and draw near to Him through obedience; for He is near and answers (qarībun mujīb). God, Mighty and Majestic, has said: ‘When My servants ask you about Me, [tell them that] I am indeed nearmost. I answer the supplicant’s call when he calls Me. So let them respond to Me, and let them have faith in Me, so that they may fare rightly.’’(180)

And from Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, that the Prophet (s.a.w.) recited: ‘When My servants ask you about Me, [tell them that] I am indeed nearmost’, and said: ‘O God, I have been commanded to supplicate, and You have undertaken [to grant] the answer. Here I am, O God, here I am! Here I am, You have no partner, here I am! Indeed praise and blessing are Yours, and the kingdom; You have no partner. O God, I bear witness that You are Single, One, the All-embracing (ṣamad); You have not begotten and have not been begotten, and none is equal to You. And I bear witness that Your promise is true, and meeting You is true, and Paradise is true, and the Fire is true, and the Hour is coming, there is no doubt in it, and that You will raise up those who are in the graves.’(181)

Note: The mere nearness of the One called upon is not sufficient for the answering of his supplication; the nearness of the supplicant is likewise necessary. So that this nearness between the supplicant and his Lord (s.w.t.) may be attained, God (s.w.t.) has commanded the supplicant to respond to Him and to have faith in Him. What has come in the ḥadīth above can be an applied exegesis (tafsīr taṭbīqī) of the end of the verse whose exegesis we are engaged in. For Godwariness (taqwā), which constitutes the essence of the Godwary person’s nearness to God (s.w.t.) is itself his responding to God and his faith in Him, and that is what we have just discussed.

11. Supplication for Others

From Ḥammād: He said: I said to Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.): I occupy myself with supplication for my brothers and for the people of wilāyah; so what is your view of that? So he said: ‘God, Blessed and Exalted is He, answers the supplication of one absent for one absent; and whoever supplicates for the believing men and the believing women and for the people of our love, God returns to him, from Adam (a.s.) until the Hour comes, a good deed for every believer.’ Then he said: ‘God has made the prayers obligatory at the best of hours; hold to supplication after the prayers.’ Then he supplicated for me and for whoever was present with him.(182)

Note: Perhaps bringing together the hearts of the Muslims, founding a single community (ummah) and creating harmony and love among individuals, peoples, tribes and clans are among the loftiest aims that Islam pursues. Supplicating for good for one’s brothers in faith and for those devoted to wilāyah therefore plays a prominent role in achieving these aims; and whoever supplicates for good for others does not strive to block the doors and paths before them, just as he himself does not walk on the crooked road and the path that has gone astray.

12. The Inevitable Effect of Sincere Supplication

From Ibn Abī Yaʿfūr, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.), concerning His words ‘So let them respond to Me, and let them have faith in Me’: He said: ‘They know that I am able to give them what they ask.’(183)

Note: It is certain that supplication has an inevitable effect if it rests on the axis of creed and faith, unlike supplication based on testing; for the latter is tainted with doubt (shubhah) and mixed with uncertainty about [God’s] power or misgiving about the fulfilment of the pledge, and the like.

13. Faith in God’s Power to Answer

It is narrated from Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.) that he said: ‘and let them have faith in Me’, that is, ‘and let them be certain that I am able to give them what they have asked’; ‘so that they may fare rightly’, that is, ‘so that they may attain the truth and be guided to it.’(184)

Note: What has come in such narrations and ḥadīths falls within the framework of application to instances (al-taṭbīq al-miṣdāqī), not conceptual exegesis (al-tafsīr al-mafhūmī). For the title “faith in God Almighty and responding to His call” is general, in that it includes all the moral, juridical and rights-related (ḥuqūqī) commands, after faith in the fundamental principles (al-mabādiʾ al-uṣūliyyah). Thus faith in the power of God (s.w.t.) to answer the requests of supplicants, together with our faith that He (s.w.t.) will give us what we have asked, is counted among the examples of these foundations and principles, applied according to the particular circumstances related to them.

* * *

References

1. It has been narrated that a Bedouin said to the Messenger of God (s.a.w.), ‘Is our Lord near, so that we may speak to Him in private, or far, so that we must call out to Him?’ Then the verse was sent down (Tafsīr al-Aṣfā, al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī, vol. 1, p. 106). Our Prophet (s.a.w.) said: ‘Worship God as though you see Him; for if you do not see Him, He sees you. If it is said, “How can a thing be near to another while that other is far from it?”, we say: this is as when you have a beloved who is present with you while you are blind to him, neither seeing him nor sensing his presence; he is near to you, and you are far from him’ (Tafsīr al-Ṣāfī, vol. 1, p. 246). From Ibn Abī Yaʿfūr, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.), on His words ‘So let them respond to Me, and let them have faith in Me’: ‘[That is,] let them know that I am able to give them what they ask’ (al-Burhān, vol. 1, p. 185; al-Ṣāfī, vol. 1, p. 168; Biḥār al-Anwār, 19–2/44(2)). From the Prophet (s.a.w.), in what both parties [Shīʿah and Sunnīs] have narrated: ‘Supplication is the weapon of the believer.’ And in ʿUddat al-Dāʿī, in the ḥadīth qudsī: ‘O Moses, ask Me for everything you need, even the fodder of your sheep and the salt of your dough.’ And in al-Makārim, from him (a.s.): ‘Supplication is more excellent than reciting the Qurʾān, because God, Exalted and Majestic is He, has said: “Say, ‘Were it not for the sake of summoning you [to faith], what store my Lord would have set by you?’”’(3) (Sūrat al-Furqān, verse 77) (al-Mīzān, vol. 2, p. 18).

2. [Translator: the Biḥār al-Anwār reference is printed in this form (“19–2/44”) in the Arabic edition; which volume and page are meant is unclear.]

3. [Translator: Qarai renders duʿāʾukum in this verse as “summoning you [to faith]”; the narration takes it as “your supplication”: “What store would my Lord set by you were it not for your supplication?”]

4. Al-Taḥqīq fī Kalimāt al-Qurʾān, vol. 2, pp. 143–144, under “jawb”.

5. Al-Tafsīr al-Wasīṭ, vol. 1, p. 391.

6. Rawḍ al-Jinān, vol. 3, p. 46.

7. Al-Taḥqīq fī Kalimāt al-Qurʾān, vol. 4, p. 140, under “rushd”.

8. Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt, verse 7.

9. Naẓm al-Durar, vol. 1, p. 347. Burhān al-Dīn al-Biqāʿī said in Naẓm al-Durar: ‘Since the supplication of one who is fasting is answered, and this month in particular is a likely occasion for answering, because of the fasting and because of the place of the Night of Qadr; and since the mention of His grandeur, Glorified and Exalted is He, disposes His servants to a sense of distance, and so might give rise to the illusion that He is, after the manner of the proud, at a great distance from the abodes of the servants, and that, even if He were such as to hear, none of them could ask Him except through an intermediary, He removed this illusion with His words “When” (wa-idhā), indicating by the conjunction [joining it] to something not mentioned that the implied sense [is]: So when My servants ask you about Me, [know that] I, despite the loftiness of My station, am watchful over whoever obeys Me and whoever disobeys Me.’

10. Tafsīr al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, vol. 2, p. 176. Ibn ʿĀshūr said in his exegesis al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr: ‘The arrangement of the verse announces that God Almighty, after commanding them [to do] what is His due from them, honoured them and said: “When they ask about their due from Me, I am near to them; I answer their call.” And He made this statement consequent on supposing their question, as an indication that, after hearing the command to complete [the number], to magnify [God] and to give thanks, it would occur to them to say: Is there a recompense for us for that?’

11. Anwār al-Tanzīl wa-Asrār al-Taʾwīl, vol. 1, p. 106.

12. Tafsīr Gharāʾib al-Qurʾān wa-Raghāʾib al-Furqān, vol. 1, p. 505.

13. Tafsīr al-Manār, vol. 2, p. 166. Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā said: ‘Magnifying [God] is a reason given for completing the number by fasting the whole month, and its greatest manifestation is on the festival of Fiṭr, since magnifying [God] by word has been legislated on it throughout its night and until after its prayer; and by all of this we become among those who give thanks to Him for all these blessings and for others… Magnifying [God] and giving thanks are by word, such as “Praise be to God” and “God is greatest”, just as they are by deed; and as for what is by word, the question arises concerning it: Is it by raising the voice and calling out, or by speaking low and conversing intimately? So this verse came as an answer to this question, which is to be expected even if it did not occur; so it is in its proper place, whether or not what they have narrated about the occasion of its revelation is sound. And the Teacher, the Imam [Muḥammad ʿAbduh], said, on mentioning the first occasion [of revelation]: This question is not unlikely from the Arabs, or the Bedouin, who were accustomed to taking means [of recourse] between themselves and their god, which would bring them near to the Creator of the heavens and the earth. These means and intermediaries were either persons or likenesses of persons, such as statues and idols; and they had not been guided by themselves to abstraction [from such things] so as to know that one, mighty God as not bound by anything, until the Qurʾān guided them to it with its clear signs, and they became the people of pure tawḥīd.’

14. Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 187.

15. Tafsīr Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, vol. 2, p. 97.

16. Valuable statements on this subject are found in the words of the masters of gnosis (ahl al-maʿrifah) and the eminent figures of letters and gnosis, such as al-Ḥakīm Sanāʾī and ʿAṭṭār of Nīshāpūr, who expounded this matter excellently and spoke at length about it. The great master al-Shaykh Muḥammad Ḥusayn Tūnī, known as Fāḍil Tūnī (may God have mercy on him), reported from his great teachers that they said: If the servant wishes to be honoured with meeting his master, he ought to present a gift that the master does not possess; otherwise everything he might present — of what the master already has — would have no value at all. The best gift a servant presents to his master is his showing of servanthood, incapacity, lowliness, imploring and humble entreaty; and certainly none of these things is to be found with the master, even though this deficiency represents a perfection for the master in itself. This meaning is manifested in its complete form in the intimate converse (munājāh) of our master the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.), when he addresses his Lord, saying: ‘My God, it is honour enough for me that I am a servant to You, and glory enough for me that You are a Lord to me. You are as I love; so make me as You love’ (Kitāb al-Khiṣāl, p. 420). The well-known Persian poet (al-Ḥakīm Sanāʾī) said in his Dīwān, p. 657:
اذهب إلى حضرة الربّ وأنت مُغبَرّ / وإلّا فعليك قبول الهوان إن أهَنت نفسك
[Translator: “Go to the presence of the Lord covered in dust; otherwise you must accept abasement, if you have abased yourself.” The Persian line is printed in Arabic translation.]

17. ‘We charged Abraham and Ishmael [with its upkeep, saying], “Purify My House for those who go around it, [for] those who make it a retreat and [for] those who bow and prostrate”’ (Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 125).

18. Sūrat al-Furqān, verse 63.

19. Sūrat al-Fajr, verse 29.

20. Sūrat al-Fajr, verse 30.

21. Sūrat al-Fajr, verses 27–28.

22. Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 25.

23. Majmaʿ al-Bayān, vols. 1–2, p. 500; Rawḍ al-Jinān, vol. 3, p. 42. Amīn al-Islām al-Ṭabrisī (may God have mercy on him) said: ‘When He, Glorified is He, mentioned fasting, He followed it with the mention of supplication, its place with Him and His answering it, and said: “When My servants ask you about Me”. It is most likely that the question was about His attribute, Glorified is He, not about His act, because of His words, Glorified is He, “I am indeed nearmost”; and in it there is an elision, that is: “Say: I am nearmost.” By this He indicated that He, Glorified is He, has no place; for if He had a place, He would not be near to everyone who converses with Him in private. And it has been said that its meaning is: I hear the supplicant’s supplication as one who is near in distance to them hears it; so the word “nearmost” came [as a figure] for the excellence of expression through it. As for nearness in distance, that is not possible for Him, Glorified is He, because that is conceivable only of one who is located in a place, and that is among the attributes of things originated.’

24. Tafsīr al-Mīzān, vol. 2, pp. 30–33. The master, ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī, said: ‘His words, Exalted is He, “When My servants ask you about Me…” are the best expression of the content they comprise, and the most delicate and most beautiful in style. He has laid its foundation on the first person singular, not the third person and the like, and in this there is an indication of complete care for the matter. Then His words “My servants” — and He did not say “people” or the like — add to this care. Then the omission of the intermediary in the answer, where He said “I am indeed nearmost” and did not say, “Say: He is near.” Then the emphasis with inna. Then the use of the adjective instead of the verb that indicates nearness, to indicate the constancy and permanence of the nearness. Then the indication of the renewal and continuance of answering, where He used the imperfect verb, which indicates them both. Then His qualifying of the answer — I mean His words “I answer the supplicant’s call” — by His words “when he calls Me”; and this qualification adds nothing to His words “the supplicant’s call”, which is qualified by it; rather, it is the same thing. In this there is an indication that “the supplicant’s call” is answered without condition or qualification, like His words, Exalted is He: “Call Me, and I will hear you!” (Sūrat al-Muʾmin, verse 60).’

25. Majmaʿ al-Bayān, vols. 1–2, p. 500.

26. The interrogative questions put by people that the Noble Qurʾān mentions are divided into several kinds according to what each of those questions concerns, as follows: (a) A question about the doctrinal principles and the ideology of tawḥīd, such as the enquiry and question about the Day of Resurrection and the time of its occurrence, in His words (s.w.t.): ‘They ask you concerning the Hour, “When will it set in”’ (Sūrat al-Nāziʿāt, verse 42). (b) A question about scientific matters and natural phenomena, such as His words (s.w.t.): ‘They question you concerning the mountains’ (Sūrat Ṭā Hā, verse 105), and His words (s.w.t.): ‘They question you concerning the new moons’ (Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 189). (c) Enquiry and question about the reality of the human being and matters particular to knowledge of the self, such as His words (s.w.t.): ‘They question you concerning the Spirit’ (Sūrat al-Isrāʾ, verse 85). (d) Questions and enquiries about historical events and occurrences, such as His words (s.w.t.): ‘They question you concerning Dhul Qarnayn’ (Sūrat al-Kahf, verse 83). (e) Enquiry about juristic matters, such as His words (s.w.t.): ‘They ask you concerning warfare in the holy month’ (Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 217), and His words, Mighty is His Name: ‘They ask you concerning [intercourse during] menses’ (Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 222). It is worth pointing out that the greater part of the questions in the Noble Qurʾān concern the doctrinal principles and foundations (such as the Origin, the Return and prophethood).

27. Sūrat al-Raḥmān, verse 29.

28. Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, verse 32.

29. Sūrat al-Zumar, verse 38.

30. Tafsīr al-Manār, vol. 2, p. 166. Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā said: ‘And the Teacher, the Imam, said, on mentioning the first occasion [of revelation]: This question is not unlikely from the Arabs, or the Bedouin, who were accustomed to taking means [of recourse] between themselves and their god, which would bring them near to the Creator of the heavens and the earth. These means and intermediaries were either persons or likenesses of persons, such as statues and idols; and they had not been guided by themselves to abstraction [from such things] so as to know that one, mighty God as not bound by anything, until the Qurʾān guided them to it with its clear signs, and they became the people of pure tawḥīd.’

31. Rawḍ al-Jinān, vol. 3, p. 42.

32. Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, al-Mujallad 2, vol. 2, pp. 209–213. In his exegesis al-Ṭabarī mentioned some of the ignorance and superstitions that the Arabs of the Jāhiliyyah believed and held to, among them his statement: ‘They used to claim that it was the jinn who turned the bulls away from the water, so that the cows held back from drinking until they perished. Al-Jāḥiẓ said, in mentioning the fires of the Arabs: … And another fire, which is the fire by which they used to seek rain in the first Jāhiliyyah: when crises came upon them one after another, affliction settled upon them, drought grew severe and they needed to seek rain, they would gather and collect whatever cattle they could, then tie salaʿ and ʿushar [plants] to their tails and between their hocks, then drive them up a rugged mountain, set fire to them, and cry out loudly in supplication and humble entreaty; and they held that this was among the means of obtaining rain. And Ibn al-Kalbī said: They would kindle [fires] as a good omen for lightning.’

33. Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 115.

34. Sūrat Hūd, verse 61.

35. Sūrat Sabaʾ, verse 50.

36. Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid, p. 525; Mafātīḥ al-Jinān, the Supplication of Abū Ḥamzah al-Thumālī (may God have mercy on him).

37. Tafsīr al-Kashshāf, vol. 1, p. 228. Al-Zamakhsharī said: The Messenger of God (s.a.w.) was expecting from his Lord that He would turn him towards the Kaʿbah, because it was the qiblah of his father Abraham [(a.s.)], and more likely to call the Arabs to faith, since it was their pride, the place they visited and the place they circumambulated; and in order to differ from the Jews. So he would watch for the descent of Gabriel (a.s.) and the revelation with the change [of qiblah]. ‘We will surely turn you’ (fa-la-nuwalliyannaka): We will surely grant you and enable you to face it — from your saying wallaytuhu kadhā when you make him its governor (wālī) — or: We will surely make you face (talī) its direction rather than the direction of Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis). ‘of your liking’ (tarḍāhā): you love it and incline towards it, for your sound purposes which you harboured and which accorded with God’s will and His wisdom. ‘towards the Holy Mosque’ (shaṭr al-masjid al-ḥarām): in its direction; [the poet] said: ‘And I journey with the people towards (shaṭr) the kings.’ And Ubayy read tilqāʾa al-masjid al-ḥarām (‘facing the Holy Mosque’). And from al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib: The Messenger of God (s.a.w.) came to Medina and prayed towards Jerusalem for sixteen months, then he was turned towards the Kaʿbah. It has been said that this was in Rajab, after the sun had passed the meridian, two months before the battle of Badr; and the Messenger of God (s.a.w.) was in the mosque of Banū Salimah and had prayed two rakʿahs of the noon prayer with his companions; so he turned round in the prayer and faced the water-spout (al-mīzāb), and changed the men to the place of the women and the women to the place of the men; so the mosque was named the Mosque of the Two Qiblahs. [Translator: the passage quoted from al-Kashshāf concerns 2:144 (the change of qiblah) and does not itself mention nearness; it is translated as printed. The printed mas ṣalāt al-ẓuhr (“two rakʿahs mas the noon prayer”) is evidently a misprint for min ṣalāt al-ẓuhr (“of the noon prayer”).]

38. Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, vol. 2, part 2, p. 96. Al-Ālūsī said in his exegesis: ‘When My servants ask you’: in the change in the mode of address, together with its being directed to the master of those possessed of understanding (upon him be blessing and peace), there is evident honouring and elevation of station. ‘about Me’: that is, about My nearness and My distance, since the question is not about His Essence Almighty. ‘I am indeed nearmost’: that is, say that to them, by informing [them] of the nearness in whatever way; and a supposed ellipsis (taqdīr) is necessary, since without it [the answer] would not follow upon the condition. The supposed [word] was not stated explicitly as [it is] in similar [verses], to indicate that He Almighty has undertaken their answer Himself and has not left them to His Messenger (s.a.w.), as a pointer to the perfection of His kindness. Nearness is literal (ḥaqīqah) in spatial nearness, from which He Almighty is transcendent; so it is a metaphor for His knowledge Almighty of the servants’ deeds and words, and His awareness of all their states.

39. Sūrat al-Wāqiʿah, verse 85.

40. Sūrat Qāf, verse 16.

41. Sūrat al-Anfāl, verse 24.

42. See Majmaʿ al-Bayān, vols. 3–4, p. 820.

43. Tafsīr Nūr al-Thaqalayn, vol. 2, pp. 141–142. ʿAllāmah al-ʿArūsī al-Ḥuwayzī (may his soul be sanctified) said: From Abū al-Jārūd, from Abū Jaʿfar (a.s.), regarding His words ‘O you who have faith! Answer Allah and the Apostle when he summons you to that which will give you life’, he says: ‘The wilāyah of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (a.s.); for your following him and his wilāyah is more unifying of your affairs and more preserving of justice among you.’ And as for His words ‘Know that Allah intervenes between a man and his heart’, he says: ‘Between the believer and his disobedience, lest it lead him to the Fire; and between the unbeliever and his obedience, lest he perfect faith through it. And know that deeds are [judged] by their endings.’

44. Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, p. 306, ḥadīth 1.

45. Imam al-Bāqir (a.s.) said: ‘God, Mighty and Majestic, created the son of Adam hollow.’ (al-Kāfī, vol. 6, p. 286).

46. [Translator: so printed. The argument seems to require a negation: “If such a being were not nearer to any being than anything else, this would entail the finitude of the infinite being.”]

47. [Translator: so printed (wa-lā yumkinu jaʿl al-mawṣūfiyyah dāllatan li-l-māhiyyah). The parallel with the preceding clauses suggests “nor is it possible to make qualification qualification”; dāllatan li-l-māhiyyah is probably a corruption.]

48. Al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr, vol. 3, part 5, p. 104, with modification.

49. [Translator: so printed (alladhī yuʿaddu min sinkh al-maqūlāt al-khārijiyyah wa-min al-maqūlāt al-thāniyah). “Secondary categories” is probably a misprint for “secondary intelligibles” (al-maʿqūlāt al-thāniyah); and since the point is that a concept differs from a category, a negation (“which is not of the type of the external categories”) may have dropped out.]

50. Sūrat Ghāfir, verse 60.

51. Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, verse 56.

52. Sūrat al-Furqān, verse 77. [Translator: Qarai takes duʿāʾukum here as God’s summoning them; the author’s use of the verse reads it as their supplication: “What store would my Lord set by you were it not for your supplication?”]

53. Sūrat Ghāfir, verse 60.

54. Sūrat Ṭāhā, verse 50.

55. Sūrat al-Raḥmān, verse 29.

56. Sūrat Ibrāhīm, verse 34.

57. Wasāʾil al-Shīʿah, vol. 7, p. 27.

58. Ibid., p. 84.

59. ‘Al-awwāh is one who sighs much (yukthiru al-taʾawwuh), that is, who says awh; and every utterance indicating grief is taʾawwuh; and al-awwāh is used of one who shows fear of God.’ (al-Tawqīf ʿalā Muhimmāt al-Taʿārīf, Khalūf ibn Muḥammad, vol. 1, p. 102, the section on wāw); ‘And so-and-so went awwaha and ahhaha, when he felt pain and said āh, or said hāh when in pain, and let out his breath with this sound so that what afflicted him might be relieved; and al-awwāh: one who supplicates much for good.’ (Kitāb al-ʿAyn, vol. 1, p. 285).

60. [Translator: “temporal” (zamāniyyan) is as printed; the contrast with “of the soul” suggests “verbal” (lisāniyyan or lafẓiyyan) may have been intended.]

61. [Translator: the Arabic sentence beginning “And for this reason the supplication which …” has no main predicate as printed; it is translated as it stands.]

62. Sūrat al-Sajdah, verse 16.

63. Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, verse 143.

64. Iqbāl al-Aʿmāl, p. 293.

65. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 100, p. 224.

66. Al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 352. The complete text of the narration: From Ḥammād ibn Bashīr, who said: I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.) say: ‘The Messenger of God (s.a.w.) said: God, Mighty and Majestic, said: Whoever humiliates a walī of Mine has lain in wait to wage war on Me. A servant does not draw near to Me by anything more beloved to Me than what I have made obligatory upon him; and he draws near to Me by the supererogatory act until I love him; and when I love him, I become his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his tongue with which he speaks, and his hand with which he grasps. If he calls Me, I answer him; and if he asks Me, I give to him. And I have not hesitated over anything that I do as I hesitate over the death of the believer: he dislikes death, and I dislike displeasing him.’

67. See Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 90, pp. 313–318. It is reported in Biḥār al-Anwār that the Prophet (s.a.w.) said: ‘When one of you supplicates, let him make [his supplication] general, for that is more binding for the supplication [i.e. for its being answered]; and whoever puts forward forty men from among his brothers before he supplicates for himself, it is answered for him regarding them and regarding himself.’ It also reports, transmitted from Nahj al-Balāghah, that the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) said: ‘When you have a need of God, Glorified is He, then begin by asking for blessing upon the Prophet (s.a.w.), then ask for your need; for God Almighty is too generous to be asked for two needs and to fulfil one of them and withhold the other.’ And from al-Ḥārith ibn al-Mughīrah, that he said: I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.) say: ‘Beware! When one of you wishes to ask his Lord for something of the needs of this world, [let him not do so] until he begins with praise of God, Mighty and Majestic, and lauding Him, and blessing upon the Prophet (s.a.w.); then let him ask God for his needs.’ And he (a.s.) said: ‘It is only lauding, then praise, then confession of the sin, then asking. By God, no servant has come out of a sin except by confession.’

68. Sūrat al-Isrāʾ, verse 11. The expression duʿāʾahu bi-l-khayr (‘he prays for good’) stands in the position of an absolute object (mafʿūl muṭlaq) stating the kind.

69. Sūrat al-Tawbah, verse 55: ‘So let not their wealth and children impress you: Allah only desires to punish them with these in the life of this world, and that their souls may depart while they are faithless’.

70. See al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 467; Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 93, pp. 295–303. Al-Kulaynī (may God have mercy on him) said: From Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.): He said: ‘Whoever does not ask God, Mighty and Majestic, of His bounty, [has] become poor.’ And from Muyassir ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who said: He said to me — meaning Imam al-Ṣādiq (a.s.) —: ‘O Muyassir, supplicate, and do not say, “The matter has been finished with.” With God, Mighty and Majestic, there is a station that is not attained except by asking; and if a servant closed his mouth and did not ask, he would not be given anything. So ask, and you will be given. O Muyassir, there is no door that is knocked upon but that it is about to be opened for the one [knocking on it].’

71. Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 216.

72. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 93, p. 303.

73. Words spoken by our master Ibrāhīm (a.s.) to Jibrīl (a.s.) when Nimrod wanted to throw him into the fire (Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 68, p. 156). Nimrod ordered firewood to be gathered in the Sawād of Kufa, at the river “Kūthā”, from the village “Quṭnānā”, and lit the fire; but they were unable to throw Ibrāhīm [into it]. So Iblīs made the catapult for them, and he was thrown with it. Jibrīl (a.s.) met him in the air and said: Do you have any need? He said: ‘As for to you — no. God is sufficient for me, and an excellent trustee is He.’ Then Mīkāʾīl (a.s.) received him and said: If you wish, I will extinguish the fire, for the treasuries of the rains and the waters are in my hand. He said: ‘I do not wish [it].’ And the angel of the wind came to him and said: If you wish, I will blow away the fire. He said: ‘I do not wish [it].’ Jibrīl (a.s.) said: Then ask God. He said: ‘Sufficient for me, of my asking, is His knowledge of my state.’ As for “Kūthā”, it is said to be Kūthā Rubā, on the pattern of “ṭūbā hudā”, one of the villages of Kufa, as the historians have mentioned; what the lexicographers have mentioned is Kūthā. Al-Jazarī said: Kūthā of Iraq is the navel of the Sawād, and in it Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl (a.s.) was born. And Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī said: The Kūthā of Iraq are two Kūthās: one of them [is Kūthā] al-Ṭarīq, and the other Kūthā Rubā, and in it is the shrine of Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl (a.s.) and in it is his birthplace; both of them are of the land of Babylon, and in it Ibrāhīm was cast into the fire.

74. ‘He said, “O my people! Have you considered, should I stand on a manifest proof from my Lord, who has provided me a good provision from Himself…”’ (Sūrat Hūd, verse 88).

75. Sūrat Hūd, verse 6.

76. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 68, p. 263. In the Sermon of al-Wasīlah, from the Commander of the Faithful, God’s blessings be upon him: ‘No absent one is nearer than death. O people, whoever walks on the face of the earth will come into its belly; and night and day are hastening in the demolition of lifespans; and for everyone with a last breath of life there is sustenance, and for every grain an eater, and you are the sustenance of death. And whoever knows the days does not neglect preparation; no rich man will escape death by his wealth, nor a poor man by his destitution.’

77. Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, verse 32.

78. Sūrat al-Shūrā, verse 26.

79. Al-Maḥajjat al-Bayḍāʾ, vol. 2, p. 307. It is among the counsels with which God Almighty counselled His prophet ʿĪsā (a.s.), and the complete text of those counsels is: ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm, from his father, from ʿAlī ibn Asbāṭ, from them (a.s.): He said: Among the counsels with which God, Mighty and Majestic, counselled ʿĪsā (a.s.): ‘O ʿĪsā, I am your Lord and the Lord of your fathers. My name is one, and I am the One, unique in the creation of all things; everything is of My making, and all are returning to Me. O ʿĪsā, you are the Messiah by My command; you create from clay the likeness of the bird by My leave, and you give life to the dead by My word. So be towards Me desiring and of Me fearing, and you will never find a refuge from Me except in Me. O ʿĪsā, I counsel you with the counsel of one who is tender towards you with mercy, until guardianship (al-wilāyah) from Me became your due through your seeking My pleasure. So you were blessed when grown and blessed when small, wherever you were. I bear witness that you are My servant, the son of My bondmaid. Place Me in relation to yourself as your [chief] concern, and make remembrance of Me [a provision] for your Return, and draw near to Me by the supererogatory acts, and rely on Me and I will suffice you; and do not rely on other than Me, lest I forsake you.(80) O ʿĪsā, be patient in tribulation and be content with the decree, and be as My pleasure in you [would have you be]; for My pleasure is that I be obeyed and not disobeyed. O ʿĪsā, give life to remembrance of Me with your tongue, and let love of Me be in your heart. O ʿĪsā, be wakeful in the hours of heedlessness, and make firm for Me the subtle [points] of wisdom. O ʿĪsā, be desiring and fearing, and deaden your heart with awe. O ʿĪsā, keep watch over the night to seek My pleasure, and make your day thirst for the day of your need with Me. O ʿĪsā, vie in good with your utmost effort, so that you are known for good wherever you turn. O ʿĪsā, judge among My servants by My counsel, and establish among them My justice; for I have sent down upon you a healing for what is in the breasts from the disease of Satan. O ʿĪsā, do not be a companion to anyone who is led astray (maftūn). O ʿĪsā, truly I say: no creature has believed in Me but that it humbled itself before Me, and none has humbled itself before Me but that it hoped for My reward; so I bear witness that it is secure from My punishment, so long as it does not change or alter My sunnah. O ʿĪsā, son of the chaste virgin, weep over yourself the weeping of one who has bidden farewell to family, abhorred the world and left it to its people, and whose desire has become for what is with his God. O ʿĪsā, be, along with that, gentle in speech, spreading [the greeting of] peace, wakeful when the eyes of the righteous sleep, in wariness of the Return and the severe earthquakes and the terrors of the Day of Resurrection, where neither family nor child nor wealth will avail! O ʿĪsā, put the kohl of sorrow on your eye with its stick when the idle laugh. O ʿĪsā, be humble and patient; blessed are you (ṭūbā laka) if what the patient are promised reaches you. O ʿĪsā, depart from the world day after day, and taste of that whose savour has already gone; for truly I say, you are only in your hour and your day. So depart from the world with a bare sufficiency, and let the rough and coarse suffice you; for you have seen what you will come to, and what you have taken, and how you have consumed [it], is written down. O ʿĪsā, you will be questioned; so have mercy on the weak as I have mercy on you, and do not oppress the orphan. O ʿĪsā, weep over yourself in the places of seclusion, and carry your feet to the appointed times of the prayers, and let Me hear the sweetness of your utterance in My remembrance; for My doing towards you is good. O ʿĪsā, how many a nation have I destroyed for past sins from which I have protected you. O ʿĪsā, be gentle with the weak, and raise your weary gaze to the sky and call upon Me, for I am near to you; and do not call upon Me except beseeching Me, with your concern a single concern; for when you call upon Me thus, I will answer you. O ʿĪsā, I was not pleased with the world as a reward for those who were before you, nor as a punishment for those on whom I took vengeance. O ʿĪsā, you perish and I remain; from Me is your provision, with Me is the appointed time of your term, to Me is your return, and upon Me is your reckoning. So ask Me, and do not ask other than Me, so that the supplication will be good on your part and the answering on Mine. O ʿĪsā, how many are human beings, and how few in number are those who are patient! The trees are many, and the good among them few; so let not the beauty of a tree deceive you until you taste its fruit. O ʿĪsā, let not the one who rebels against Me by disobedience deceive you: he eats My provision and worships other than Me, then he calls upon Me in distress and I answer him, then he returns to what he was upon. Is it against Me that he rebels, or is it My wrath that he exposes himself to? By Myself I have sworn, I shall seize him with a seizing from which there is no escape for him, and short of Me there is no refuge. Where will he flee from My heaven and My earth? O ʿĪsā, say to the wrongdoers of the Children of Israel: Do not call upon Me while ill-gotten gain is in your laps and the idols are in your houses; for I have sworn that I will answer whoever calls upon Me, and that I will make My answering of them a curse upon them until they disperse.’

80. [Translator: the Arabic as printed reads fa-ākhudha laka, which yields no clear sense; it probably should be fa-akhdhulaka (“lest I forsake you”), as the counsel is usually transmitted.]

81. Iqbāl al-Aʿmāl, p. 143.

82. Amālī al-Ṣadūq, p. 317, Session 61; Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 92, p. 301. Al-Ṣadūq (may his soul be sanctified) said: From Muḥammad ibn Bakrān al-Naqqāsh, from Aḥmad al-Hamdānī, from ʿUbayd ibn Ḥamdūn, from al-Ḥusayn ibn Naṣr, from his father, from ʿAmr ibn Shimr, from Jābir, from al-Bāqir, from his father, from his grandfather, from ʿAlī (a.s.): He said: ‘I complained to the Messenger of God (s.a.w.) of a debt I owed, and he said: O ʿAlī, say: “O God, make me free of need, by what You have made lawful, of what You have made unlawful, and by Your bounty of all besides You.” Then even if you had a debt like [Mount] Ṣabīr, God would settle it for you.’

83. Al-Arbaʿūn Ḥadīthan, by al-Shaykh al-Bahāʾī, pp. 243–244, in the comment following ḥadīth 16.

84. See also Tafsīr al-Mīzān, vol. 2, p. 31. ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī (may his soul be sanctified) said: ‘… then His qualifying the answer — I mean His words ‘I answer the supplicant’s call’ — by His words ‘when he calls Me’; and this qualification adds nothing to His words ‘the supplicant’s call’, which is qualified by it; rather it is identical to it; and in it there is an indication that the call of the supplicant is answered without condition or qualification.’

85. Sūrat Ghāfir, verse 60. [Translator: Qarai renders ad‘ūnī astajib lakum as “Call Me, and I will hear you!”; astajib lakum is literally “I will answer you”, which is the sense the author’s argument relies on here and below.]

86. Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, verse 55.

87. Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, verse 56.

88. Sūrat al-Aḥqāf, verse 5. There are many Qurʾānic verses that contain something resembling this meaning, such as His Almighty words in verse 92 of Sūrat al-Ṣāffāt: ‘Why do you not speak?’, and His words in verse 85 of Sūrat al-Naml: ‘And the word [of judgement] shall fall upon them for their wrongdoing, and they will not speak’.

89. Sūrat al-Raʿd, verse 14.

90. Sūrat al-Naml, verse 62.

91. Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ, verses 78–80.

92. Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid, p. 776, the Supplication of Kumayl ibn Ziyād (may God have mercy on him), p. 776.

93. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 91, p. 148; Mafātīḥ al-Jinān: the Fifteen Whispered Prayers (al-Munājāt al-Khams ʿAsharah) of our master ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn (a.s.), the eighth munājāh.

94. Al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 331.

95. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 72, p. 310.

96. Al-Tibyān fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾān, vol. 2, p. 129. Al-Ṭūsī (may God have mercy on him) said: ‘It is not permissible to qualify the answering by the will, by saying, “If You will”, because the promise would thereby become one in which there is no benefit; so whoever permits that has erred. If it is said: If He does not answer everyone who supplicates, then what is the meaning of the verse? We say: Its meaning is that whoever supplicates — according to the conditions of wisdom which we have set out before, and [where] the interest requires his being answered — is answered without fail.’

97. Sūrat al-Anʿām, verse 41.

98. Wasāʾil al-Shīʿah, vol. 1, pp. 365–366. It has also come in Wasāʾil al-Shīʿah: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, by his chain of transmission, from al-Ḥusayn ibn Saʿīd, from Ḥammād ibn ʿĪsā, from Ḥarīz, from Zurārah, from Abū Jaʿfar (a.s.), who said: ‘There is no prayer except with purification.’ And from him, from Ḥammād, from Ḥarīz, from Zurārah, from Abū Jaʿfar (a.s.), in a ḥadīth, he said: ‘O Zurārah, ablution is an obligation.’

99. Sūrat al-Aʿrāf, verse 55.

100. Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid, p. 531.

101. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 74, p. 87.

102. Al-Amālī, al-Shaykh al-Ṭūsī, pp. 166–167, the sixth session.

103. ‘So they went on and when they boarded the boat, he made a hole in it. He said, “Did you make a hole in it to drown its people? You have certainly done a monstrous thing!”… As for the boat, it belonged to some poor people who work on the sea. I wanted to make it defective, for behind them was a king seizing every ship usurpingly’. (Sūrat al-Kahf, verses 71–79.)

104. ʿAllāmah Ṭabāṭabāʾī (may his soul be sanctified) said in Tafsīr al-Mīzān, pp. 24–25: “For interpretation (taʾwīl) is an external matter that is the return and the outcome of another external matter. So the description of the verses of the Book as possessing taʾwīl — in respect of their relating external meanings (as in reports) or their being connected to acts or external matters (as in commands, inshāʾ) — [means that] they have taʾwīl; so the description is a description by the state of what the thing is connected to, not by the state of the thing itself. Secondly: taʾwīl, even if it is the source to which the thing returns and in which it ends up, is a particular return, not every return; for the subordinate returns to his superior and is not his taʾwīl, and number returns to one and is not its taʾwīl; so inevitably it is a source in a particular way, not absolutely. That is indicated by [what has come in] the story of Moses and al-Khiḍr (a.s.).”

105. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 90, p. 368.

106. Sūrat al-Ḥadīd, verse 3.

107. [Translator: the Arabic prints dūna al-tawajjuh ilā Allāh (“[preventing] turning to God”); this is evidently for “turning to other than God”, the subject of the first paragraph (“Turning to other than God Almighty”), and is translated accordingly.]

108. Wasāʾil al-Shīʿah, vol. 7, p. 124; and vol. 17, p. 27. From Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.), who said: ‘Four [people] whose supplication is not granted: a man sitting in his house, saying, “O God, provide for me”, and it is said to him, “Did I not command you to seek?”; and a man who had a wife and supplicated against her, and it is said to him, “Did I not place her affair in your hands?”; and a man who had wealth and squandered it, and then says, “O God, provide for me”, and it is said to him, “Did I not command you to be moderate? Did I not command you to set things right?”’ Then he said: ‘Those who are neither wasteful nor tightfisted when spending, but balanced between these [two extremes] [Sūrat al-Furqān, verse 67]. And a man who had wealth and lent it without evidence, and it is said to him, “Did I not command you to have witnesses?”’

109. Sūrat al-Mulk, verse 15.

110. Rawḍ al-Jinān, vol. 19, p. 326; Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, vol. 14, 29/10–11. Al-Ṭabarī said in Jāmiʿ al-Bayān: “From Ibn ʿAbbās: His words ‘on its flanks’ — he says: its mountains.”

111. “Tar (qaṭirān) is what exudes from the juniper tree (al-abhal), and camels and others are smeared with it.” Al-Miṣbāḥ al-Munīr, p. 508, entry qaṭr.

112. Tafsīr al-Kashshāf, vol. 1, p. 288.

113. Sūrat al-Aḥqāf, verse 32.

114. Raḥmah min al-Raḥmān, vol. 1, p. 265, with adaptation.

115. See the book al-Tawḥīd, pp. 331–333, the footnote. The question of badāʾ is considered to have particular characteristics, which we will explain at the appropriate time when interpreting the noble verse ‘Allah effaces and confirms whatever He wishes and with Him is the Mother Book’ (Sūrat al-Raʿd, verse 39) and the other verses.

116. Badāʾ in the root of the language means appearance (ẓuhūr), and in usage it has acquired a specialisation in the appearance of a new opinion in a matter. (Tafsīr al-Aṣfā, al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī, vol. 3, p. 451.)

117. Sūrat al-Anbiyāʾ, verse 35.

118. The question of compulsion and delegation (al-jabr wa-l-tafwīḍ), and the intermediate position between them, has already been explained and expounded. (See: Tafsīr Tasnīm, vol. 2, pp. 529–535.)

119. Sūrat al-Anʿām, verse 3. [Translator: the verse quoted is verse 2 of Sūrat al-Anʿām, as the text itself says below.]

120. Sūrat al-Naḥl, verse 96.

121. ‘It is He who created you from clay, then ordained the term [of your life]—the specified term is with Him—and yet you are in doubt’.

122. Sūrat al-Māʾidah, verse 35.

123. Al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 352.

124. Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid, p. 778, the Supplication of Kumayl ibn Ziyād.

125. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 25, p. 23.

126. Iqbāl al-Aʿmāl, p. 198.

127. Al-Ṣaḥīfah al-Sajjādiyyah, the thirteenth supplication (his (a.s.) supplication in seeking needs).

128. See: al-Ḥikmah al-Mutaʿāliyah, vol. 6, p. 404, the words of Ibn Sīnā in al-Taʿlīqāt. Mullā Ṣadrā (may his soul be sanctified) said: “The Shaykh [Ibn Sīnā] said in his Taʿlīqāt: The cause of the answering of supplication is the concurrence of the causes together with the divine wisdom; that is, that the cause of a man’s supplication, for example, regarding what he supplicates for, and the cause of the existence of that thing, should coincide together from the Creator Almighty. If it is said: Then could that thing have existed without the supplication and its concurrence with that supplication? We say: No; because their cause is one, and it is the Creator, and it is He who made the cause of the existence of that thing the supplication, just as He made the cause of this sick person’s health the drinking of the medicine, and as long as he does not drink the medicine he will not become well. So likewise is the situation with supplication and that thing’s concurrence with it: it is by wisdom that they concur together, according to what He has measured out and decreed. Supplication is necessary, and expecting the answer is necessary; for our being moved to supplicate has its cause from there, and our supplication becomes a cause of the answer; and the concurrence of the supplication with the occurrence of the thing supplicated for is because they are both effects of one cause, and one of them may be by the mediation of the other. And he also said: If the supplication of that man is not granted, even though he sees that the end for which he supplicates is beneficial, the reason for it is that the beneficial end is only according to the order of the whole, not according to the wish of that man; and perhaps the end is not beneficial according to his wish, and therefore the granting of his supplication is not proper. And he also said: The pure soul, at supplication, may have a power emanated upon it from the First, by which it becomes effective in the elements, so the elements obey it, being disposed according to its will, and that is the answering of the supplication; for the elements are subject to the soul’s acting upon them, and the consideration of that in our bodies is correct, for we may imagine something and our bodies change according to what the states of our souls and their imaginings require. And he also said: It is possible that the soul affects other than its body just as it affects its body, and the soul may affect another soul, as is related of the estimative powers (awhām) that belong to the people of India, if the story is sound; and the first principles may respond to that soul when it supplicates for what it supplicates for, if the end for which it supplicates is beneficial according to the order of the whole. And he also said: For every supplication, it is not impossible that it be granted; and the reason for its not being impossible is that it is known to the First, even if by the mediation of the supplicant, and whatever is known to Him comes to be, if there is no other known thing that obstructs it. And the meaning of the obstruction of the other known thing that obstructs it is, for example, that a supplicant supplicates against a person for [his] ruin, and his ruin would be completed by the corruption of his constitution, while it is also known to Him from another side that that constitution must be sound; so it is not proper that the supplication be granted.”

129. Sūrat Yūnus, verse 49.

130. Sūrat al-Munāfiqūn, verse 6.

131. Al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 469: from Abū ʿAlī al-Ashʿarī, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār, from Ṣafwān, from Bisṭām al-Zayyāt, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.).

132. The previous source, p. 470.

133. Majmaʿ al-Bayān, vols. 1–2, p. 500.

134. Al-Durr al-Manthūr, vol. 1, p. 469.

135. Sūrat Fuṣṣilat, verse 44.

136. Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, verse 153.

137. Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 55.

138. In some copies: “according to the measure of the request (al-masʾalah).”

139. Nahj al-Balāghah, Letter 31.

140. Sūrat Yā Sīn, verse 82.

141. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 13, p. 356. ʿAllāmah al-Majlisī (may his soul be sanctified) said: ‘By the chain of transmission to al-Ṣadūq, from Ibn al-Mutawakkil, from al-Ḥimyarī, from Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, from Ibn Maḥbūb, from Muqātil ibn Sulaymān: he said: Abū ʿAbd Allāh (a.s.) said: “When Moses (a.s.) ascended the Mount, he conversed intimately with his Lord and said: Lord, show me Your treasuries. He said: O Moses, My treasuries are, when I will something, that I say to it ‘Be,’ and it is.”’ And he said: ‘“He said: O Lord, which of Your creation is most hateful to You? He said: The one who accuses Me. He said: And is there among Your creation one who accuses You? He said: Yes, the one who seeks My choice [for him] (yastakhīrunī) and I choose for him, and the one for whom I decree the decree, and it is good for him, and he accuses Me.”’

142. Sūrat al-Ḥijr, verse 21.

143. [Translator: Qarai renders khazāʾinuhu here as “its sources”; the Arabic word is the same khazāʾin (“treasuries”) under discussion.]

144. Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid, p. 525.

145. Dīwān al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī, p. 81.

146. Dīwān Ḥāfiẓ, ghazal no. 266.

147. The previous source, ghazal no. 144.

148. Nahj al-Balāghah, 63. [Translator: no category is printed; this is probably Saying (ḥikmah) 63.]

149. Iqbāl al-Aʿmāl, p. 199.

150. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 90, p. 234.

151. The previous source, vol. 67, p. 212.

152. The previous source, vol. 1, p. 82; and vol. 100, p. 224.

153. ʿUyūn Akhbār al-Riḍā, vol. 2, p. 40.

154. Sūrat al-Nūr, verse 35.

155. Sūrat Fuṣṣilat, verse 11.

156. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 90, p. 288; Amālī al-Ṭūsī, pp. 135–136.

157. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 90, p. 288.

158. The previous source, p. 302.

159. [Translator: the Arabic as printed reads izālat al-qaḍāʾ al-mubram wa-ghayr al-mubram alladhī yakūnu ʿalā ḥāffat kamāl al-ibrām. Read with the qualifying clause, it seems to describe a single decree that is irrevocable [in a relative sense] and not [absolutely] irrevocable, in line with the “relative irrevocability” (al-ibrām al-nisbī) mentioned at the end of the preceding section.]

160. Wasāʾil al-Shīʿah, vol. 7, p. 27. The text of the ḥadīth in full: ‘From Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī: he said: The Messenger of God (s.a.w.) said: “There is no Muslim who supplicates God, Glorified is He, with a supplication in which there is no severing of kinship and no sin, but God grants him through it one of three things: either He hastens his supplication [for him], or He defers it for him, or He repels from him of evil the like of it.” They said: “O Messenger of God, then shall we do [it] much?” He said: “Do [it] much.”’

161. [Translator: khāliyat al-fayyāḍ is as printed; it is probably a misprint for the idiom khāliyat al-wifāḍ, “empty-handed”.]

162. Al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 471.

163. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 90, p. 288.

164. The previous source, p. 295.

165. Sūrat Hūd, verse 6.

166. Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ, verse 78.

167. Biḥār al-Anwār, vol. 90, p. 303.

168. The previous source, vol. 68, p. 154.

169. Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ, verses 79–80.

170. Sūrat al-Zumar, verse 53.

171. Sūrat al-Baqarah, verse 267. [Translator: the words quoted are from verse 268 of Sūrat al-Baqarah.]

172. Al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 488.

173. Sūrat al-Raʿd, verse 28.

174. [Translator: the printed sentence ends at “this world”. Mā akhkhara is read here as “what [God] has delayed”, and the completion “[is better for them]” is supplied from the full narration in al-Kāfī, which continues khayrun lahum mimmā ʿajjala lahum fīhā (“is better for them than what He hastened for them in it”). Read as a negation, the printed words would give “God, Mighty and Majestic, has not delayed from the believers what they seek of this world.”]

175. Wasāʾil al-Shīʿah, vol. 7, p. 61.

176. Wasāʾil al-Shīʿah, vol. 7, p. 61. [Translator: the Arabic gives notes 2 and 3 as a single note: “2 and 3. Wasāʾil al-Shīʿah, vol. 7, p. 61.”]

177. Ibid., p. 62.

178. Ibid., p. 27.

179. Al-Kāfī, vol. 2, p. 488.

180. Ibid., vol. 8, p. 390.

181. Al-Durr al-Manthūr, vol. 1, p. 474.

182. Tafsīr al-Qummī, vol. 1, p. 67.

183. Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, vol. 1, p. 83.

184. Majmaʿ al-Bayān, vols. 1–2, p. 500.