“You are the First[^4]...

“You are the First[^4], and thus there is none before You, and You are the Last, and therefore there is none after You; and You are the Apparent, and therefore there is none other than You; so send Your Blessings on Muhammad and his progeny (as) and facilitate the payment of my debt and make me needless.”[^5] The supplicant therefore, is humbly asking Almighty Allāh to make his situation such that after having paid his debts, he would never need to take another debt again.

For he realizes how difficult it is to be suspended by debt, and thus would like to be free from its chains so that if death were to overtake him he would have nothing on his shoulders. Another Aspect: Paying A Common Debt Another probable meaning of this verse is that it speaks of a common debt that every human being shares. The phrase ‘ iqdī ‘annā al-dayn ’…اقض عنا الدين (lit. pay for us the debt) can imply that all the human beings are in debt.

This is when the article ‘ al ’ in al-Dayn is for ‘determination’ and thus refers to a particular debt. What kind of debt actually is this? There is well-known dictum (which some scholars narrate as a tradition[^6]) that says: أَللٌّهُ سُبْحَانَهُ غَرِيْمٌ، لاَ يُقْضَى دَيْنُهُ. “Allāh is a Creditor whose debt cannot be paid.” A rephrasal of this dictum is mentioned in the first sermon of Imām ‘Alī (as) in Nahju’l Balāghah as follows: ...وَلاَ يُؤَدِّي حَقَّهُ الْمُجْتَهِدُوْنَ....

“…One Whose rights the diligent cannot fulfill…”[^7] In simpler words: He is One Whose rights cannot be fulfilled even by those who struggle hard and are diligent.

In his Minhāj al-Barā’ah - a commentary on the Nahju’l Balāghah - ‘Allāmah Habībullāh al-Khu’ī expounds the above statement of Imām ‘Alī (as) as follows: وَالْمُرَادُ بالْحَقِّ اللاّزمِ هُوَ الْقِيَامُ عَلى شُكْرِ النَّعْمَاءِ، وَحَمْدِ الآلاَءِ، فَأَشَارَ عَلَيْهِ السَّلاَمُ إلى أَنَّهُ لاَ يُمْكِنُ الْقِيَامُ بوَظَايِفِ حَمْدِهِ، لأَنَّ الْحَمْدَ مِنْ جُمْلَةِ نِعَمِهِ، فَيَسْتَحِقُّ عَلَيْهِ حَمْدًا وَشُكْرًا، فَلاَ يَنْقَضِي مَا يَسْتَحِقُّهُ مِنَ الْمَحَامِدِ، لِعَدَمِ تَنَاهِي نِعَمِهِ، فَالأَوْلىَ حِيْنَئِذٍ الاِعْتِرَافُ بالْعَجْزِ وَالْقُصُوْرِ.

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