Appearance
Questions and Answers
In the verse of supplication, Sūrat al-Baqarah 2:186, set among the verses on fasting, God tells the Prophet that He is near and answers the call of the one who calls Him, and asks His servants to respond to Him and have faith in Him. This page gathers the questions readers most often ask about it, in the order of al-Tasnim’s commentary, each with a short answer drawn from what Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī says. Each answer links to the passage in al-Tasnim, so you can read more.
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The verse and its setting
Why does a verse about supplication appear among the verses on fasting?
Because Ramaḍān is the month of supplication as well as of fasting and the Qur’an. In it, Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī says, supplication is more sincere and the answer swifter. Placing this verse among the verses on fasting shows how important supplication is in that month compared with the others.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · The Relationship between the Verses
What question were people asking?
Narrations say a Bedouin asked the Prophet, “Is our Lord near, so that we may speak to Him in private, or far, so that we must call out to Him?” Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī notes it is not strange for such a question to come from idol-worshippers or from those who pictured God as a body far up in the sky.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · 1. The Occasion of Revelation · Verse 2:186 · The Answer to the Questions of Corporealism and Anthropomorphism
Was the question about whether God created the world?
No. The Arabs of the time already believed God was the Creator. Their perplexity was about who governs human affairs and solves their problems: whether God is near, whether He answers, and on what terms. So the verse is about God’s Lordship, presence and answering.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · The Interrogative Question about the Petitionary Question
What do the key words “answer” and “respond” mean?
The root j-w-b means piercing and penetrating. So a real answer is one that reaches the other party, pierces his difficulty and loosens its knot. When God answers a supplication, He makes it effective and brings about what was sought.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Vocabulary
God’s nearness
Why does God answer directly, without saying “Say: He is near”?
Elsewhere the Qur’an often tells the Prophet, “Say…”. Here God speaks in the first person, with no go-between: I am indeed nearmost. Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī counts this among the signs of special kindness in the verse, along with the first-person pronoun used seven times and the word My servants.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Special Kindnesses · Verse 2:186 · Special Kindnesses
Who are “My servants” in this verse?
Here the phrase is general: it covers every needy servant of God, not a special elect. That differs from Then enter among My servants in Sūrat al-Fajr, which refers to a particular group with a station others cannot reach. Even so, ordinary servants may rise to the rank of the elect through responding and faith.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Special Kindnesses
Does “near” mean God is in a place?
No. God is near by His knowledge and power, not by place, since place is one of His creatures. The verse in fact proves that God has no place: if He had one, He could not be near to everyone who speaks to Him in private.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Special Kindnesses · Verse 2:186 · Special Kindnesses
How near is God to the human being?
The Qur’an describes stages: nearer than anyone else; nearer than the jugular vein; and nearer than the person is to his own heart (Allah intervenes between a man and his heart, 8:24). Nothing veils God from His servants except their own evil deeds and sins.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · The Nearness of the Real and the Stages of That Nearness · Verse 2:186 · The Nearness of the Real and the Stages of That Nearness
Are some times and places closer to God than others?
Times such as breaking the fast, the pre-dawn hours and the Night of Qadr, and places such as the mosque and ʿArafāt, help the supplicant receive more of God’s grace. But they are details on the side of the receiver; they do not mean God is nearer at some times than others.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · The Answer to the Questions of Corporealism and Anthropomorphism
Can God’s nearness be seen, or only known?
Philosophy and theology can know it as knowledge, but witnessing it belongs to pure gnosis (ʿirfān). The Qur’an says We are nearer to him than you are, though you do not perceive (literally “do not see”), not “do not know”. One who gains that inner sight finds that his supplication reaches a special rank.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · The Nearness of the Real and the Stages of That Nearness
Supplication and how it is answered
What are the degrees of supplication?
Three. Supplication by the tongue of capacity, when a being is ready to receive a perfection, is always granted. Supplication by the tongue of state, when the heart turns sincerely to God in a passing need, ranks lower. Supplication by the tongue of speech has the least effect, though it is still worship: “supplication is the marrow of worship.”
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · The Degrees of Supplication · Verse 2:186 · The Degrees of Supplication
Is every supplication answered?
The verse promises that a true supplication is answered without condition. But two things must be present for a supplication to be truly realised: it must be a real request, for what is in the supplicant’s real interest, and it must be sincere, made to God alone.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Conditions for the Answering of Supplication · Verse 2:186 · Conditions for the Answering of Supplication
What if I ask for something that is bad for me?
Then it is not a real request. Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī compares it to a sick child begging for food that will harm him; if he knew the harm, he would stop asking. So one should not impose demands on God, and God’s close friends hand their affairs over to Him: “Sufficient for me, of my asking, is His knowledge of my state.”
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Conditions for the Answering of Supplication · Verse 2:186 · Conditions for the Answering of Supplication
What does sincerity in supplication mean?
Calling on God alone. When he calls Me means Me alone, not someone else, and not Me together with others. A person who deep down relies on God plus his work, his tribe or his wealth is not supplicating purely, and God has not promised to answer such a supplication.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Conditions for the Answering of Supplication · Verse 2:186 · Conditions for the Answering of Supplication
Does asking through the Prophet’s Household go against sincerity?
No. Seeking their mediation (tawassul) is not asking from other than God. The supplicant makes them intermediaries between himself and God, by God’s own command; they are manifestations of His names, and calling on them is no more “other than God” than calling on His names.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Conditions for the Answering of Supplication
Why does God answer the distressed?
Is He who answers the distressed when he invokes Him…? (27:62) does not mean that God answers the distressed and someone else answers the rest. A person in distress knows with certainty that only God can help him, like someone drowning, so his call is pure, and it is certainly answered.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Conditions for the Answering of Supplication
What stops a supplication from being answered?
Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī names several obstacles: turning to other than God, as showing off spoils worship like a drop of blood in water; asking for what is not in one’s interest; not knowing the One being asked, as Imam al-Ṣādiq said, “Because you supplicate One whom you do not know”; and supplicating without making any effort.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Obstacles to the Answering of Supplication · Verse 2:186 · Obstacles to the Answering of Supplication
Is supplication a substitute for effort?
No. The world runs on effort, and the idle person’s supplication amounts to asking God to cancel His own custom. Yet relying on one’s work alone also clashes with tawḥīd. The model is Joseph in the well, who prayed and also took hold of the rope; and Imam ʿAlī told a Bedouin treating his camel with supplication alone, “Put some tar with the supplication!”
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · Obstacles to the Answering of Supplication · Verse 2:186 · Obstacles to the Answering of Supplication
Supplication and destiny
Can supplication change what God has decreed?
Supplication works within the decree, not against it. God measured out from eternity that if a certain supplication is made, or charity given, a certain outcome follows. It can bring change in the realm of the Tablet of Effacement and Confirmation, but not in the Preserved Tablet, where the decree is fixed, such as the very fact of death.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · 1. Supplication, the Decree and Destiny
What the narrations say
What did Imam ʿAlī teach his son about supplication?
He told al-Ḥasan that God, who holds the treasuries of the heavens and the earth, has permitted us to supplicate, guaranteed the answer, and placed no one between us and Him. Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī adds that the only veil between a person and his Lord is his own deeds and egoism.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · 2. The Emphasis of the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) on Supplication
Why are some supplications answered late?
Narrations from the Imams say God sometimes delays an answer out of love for the believer’s voice and his pleading, and rewards him for it on the Day of Resurrection. The Prophet said every supplication free of sin is answered in one of three ways: hastened, stored up for the Hereafter, or by averting a like evil. So delay should never lead one to think ill of God.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · 8. The Secret of the Slowness in the Answering of Some Supplications · Verse 2:186 · 8. The Secret of the Slowness in the Answering of Some Supplications
Should we pray only in hard times?
No. Imam al-Riḍā taught that a believer’s supplication in ease should be like his supplication in hardship. A rich person can lose everything at any moment, and a poor one may have a flourishing future.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · 9. Supplication in All States
Is it worth praying for others?
Yes. Imam al-Ṣādiq said God answers the supplication of one absent for one absent, and whoever prays for the believing men and women receives a reward for each of them. Āyatullāh Jawādī Āmulī sees in this a means to Islam’s aim of bringing hearts together into one community.
Read more in al-Tasnim: Verse 2:186 · 11. Supplication for Others