ভূমিকা

And it is of three kinds: • Pleasant according to the intellect; • Pleasant according to worldly inclination; • Pleasant according to sense perception. And the word al-hasanah is employed to mean every pleasant blessing that the human being attains in his spirit, body or states. And al-sayyi’ah is opposite to that…”[^1] بحُسْن حَالِكَ The personal pronoun “ kāf ” here implies that we are after the utter Beauty of Almighty Allāh, who is the Most Pleasant and Beloved[^2].

We can therefore not limit the extensions of husn to what al-Isfahānī enumerates in his lexicon of Qur’ānic words. The universal sense of the word itself allows every pleasant entity to come under its conceptual umbrella. In addition, the Husnu‘l Hāl (the pleasant state) possessed by Almighty Allāh is beyond intellectual and sensory perception. It should be noted that the main components of husn are ‘ mubhij ‘ (pleasant, delightful, etc.) and marghūb fīh (desirable).

This is one key to understanding the various extensions of beautiful entities. The particle “ bi ” in the phrase ‘ bi husni hālik ’ here can have two probable meanings: (1) It can mean into[^3] (the same as the particle إلى ilā ). Therefore the prayer would read: “O Allāh change our unpleasant state into Your Beautiful State”. This also reminds us of another supplication which is recommended to be recited on the first day of the solar year – Nawrūz: ...حَوِّل حَالَنَا إلى اَحْسَنِ الْحَالِ...

…change our state into the most beautiful state…[^4] (2) It can denote sababiyyah (mediation) ^5 , and thus the prayer would read: “O Allāh change my evil state by Your Beautiful State”.