It is recorded in Musnad Ahmad and Sahih Abu Hatim on the authority of Abdullah bin Masud that the Messenger of Allah (salallahu alayhi wa sailam) said, "Whoever was afflicted with grief and distress and says, "Allahumma inni 'abduk, wa ibn abdik, wa ibn amatik, nasiyati biyadik, madin fiyya hukmuk, Adlun fiyya qadauk, asaluka bikuli ism huwa iak, sammaita bihi nafsak, aw anzaltahu fi kitabik, aw allamtahu ahadan min khalqik, aw istatharta bihi fi ilmilghaibiindik, an tajala al-Qurana rabia qalbi, wa nura sadri, wa jalahuzni, wa dhahaba hammi (O Allah! Iam Your Servant, the son of Your Servant, the son of Your Maid servant. You have control over me. Your Judgment is executed on me. Your Decree on me is just. I ask You by each Name of Yours by which You have called Yourself, revealed in Your Book, taught to any of Your servants, or kept as a secret in the knowledge of the unseen with You, to make the Quran the spring (delight) of my heart, the light of my chest, the eliminator of my sorrow, and the remover of my worries,) Allah, the Exalted and Ever Majestic, will remove his grief and will change his sorrow into happiness." It was said, "0 Messenger of Allah! (Do) we have to learn these words?" He said, "Yes, whoever hears them should learn them."
This great prophetic tradition implies certain matters of knowledge, monotheism and submission, for example the supplicant starts by saying, "I am Your servant, the son of Your servant, and the son of Your maid servant." This includes the forefathers of the supplicant until we reach Adam and Eve. In other words, the supplication indicates submission and full compliance to Allah. Besides the confession of being His servant along with his forefathers, it asserts the fact that the servant has no one but his Lord, His blessings and His graces. Whenever his Lord ignores him, surely he is a looser,with no refuge or support. Submission The correct meaning of, "I am Your servant" indicates full submission, compliance, and repentance to Allah as well as being obedient to ones Lord and avoiding His prohibitions depending on Him, seeking His help and support, seeking refuge in Him from evil, and finally being related to Him with feelings of love, fear and hope.
It also indicates, "I am Your servant in all cases, whether young or grown up, living or dead, obedient or disobedient, in agood condition or otherwise (i.e. being afflicted in the soul, heart, tongue or bodily organs)." Moreover, it means, "1am all Yours, both my possession and myself," for the servant and all that which he possesses belongs to his master, It also means, You are the one who bestowed all those blessings upon me so those blessings are really Yours." It also includes, "1cant act freely in that which You granted me, either my possession or myself, except by Your orders, as no servant can behave freely except with his masters permission. I can neither hurt nor benefit myself, and I possess no power (of causing) death, nor (of giving) life nor of raising the dead. So, if he really believes in all that which was previously mentioned, then he has confessed his full submission to Allah.
In His Hands
The sentence, "My forelock is in Your hands," means, "I cannot act freely as far as my soul is concerned." for how can he act freely when his soul is possessed by his Lord, his forelock is in His hands, his heart is between two of His fingers, and moreover, his death, life, happiness, misery, good-condition, and affliction are in the charge of his Lord, the Exalted? By no means is the servant in the charge of himself. The master owns him, and he is weaker than any worthless slave whose forelock is in the grasp of a powerful and mighty ruler. It is so much more than that.
Whenever the servant of Allah confesses the fact that his forelock and the forelock of all other servants are in the grasp of Allah (I.e. under His control), he will neither fear nor aspire to any worldly sovereign nor will he over estimate them, because he knows quite well that they are but subdued servants, whose destiny is controlled by Allah. . Whoever confesses this fact, surely will stand in need of Allah and whenever he witnesses the reality of other people, he will neither overestimate them nor exaggerate in seeking their support. In this way, his belief, trust and submission will be turned to Allah alone. This is the reason behind Huds speech to his people when he said in the Quranic verse, "I put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord. There is not a moving (living) creature but He has grasp of its forelock. Verily,my Lord is on the Straight Path (the truth)." (Q11 [Hud]:56).
By Each of His Names
The expression, "I ask You by each Name of Yours etc," is an invocation with all the Names of Allah whether they are known or unknown. It is allowable in the Sight of Allah, as it is an invocation with the attributes of Allah which refers to the connotations of His Names.
The expression, "to make the Quran the spring (delight) of my heart, the light of my chest," the word spring means the rain, which brings life to the earth. The Quran is compared to rain because it revives the hearts. He makes a similarity between water, which is the cause of life, and between light, which is the cause of brightness. Allah, the Exalted, makes that similarity in the Quranic verse in, which He says, "He sends down water (rain) from the sky, and the valleys flow according to their measure, but the flood bears away the foam that mounts up to the surface, and (also) from -that (are) whlich they heat in the fire in order to make ornaments." (Q 13[Ar-Rad]: 17). Allah, the Exalted, says, "Or like a rainstorm from the sky." (Q2[Baqarah]:I9) And the verse in which Allah says, "Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth ...." (Q24[Nur]:35). And the verse in which Allah says, "See you not that Allah drives the clouds gently, then joins them together." (Q24[Nur]:43).
So the supplication implies that the heart is revived by the spring of the Quran, for it is the light of the chest, a concept, which combines life and light. Allah, the Almighty says, "Is he who was dead (without Faith by ignorance and disbelief) and We gave him life (by knowledge and Faith) and set for him a light (of Belief) whereby he can walk amongst men like him who is in the darkness (of disbelief Polytheism and hypocrisy) from which he can never come out?" (Q6[Anam]: 122). Since the chest is broader than the heart, then enlightening it will surely affect the heart. The life of the body and organs are dependent on the life of the heart, which derives life from the chest and then gives life to the organs. On the other hand, if grief, distress, and sorrow contradict the life of the heart and its brightness, the supplication involves the desire that they be totally removed by the Quran.
However, if the previous feelings are to be removed by other than the Quran, for example, enjoying health, this worldly life, status, a wife or children, then surely those feelings are temporary and will eventually dissipate. There are three kinds of passive feelings, which affect the heart and they are either related to the past, which causes sorrow, or related to the future so as to cause grief or finally related to the present so as to caused distress.
This article was culled from the publications of Deen Communication Limited