ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Du'a The Constituents of Supplication One of the important issues included in the holy verse regarding supplication and Almighty God's promise to respond (2:186) is that it has mentioned some constituents for supplication: The first constituent is the the attraction between the supplicant and Allah. The second constituent is the supplicant who should have certain conditions for his supplication to be responded to.

The supplicant should be sincere in his intention. This is because, as it has been mentioned earlier, the mouth's tongue should express the heart's tongue. Therefore a wandering heart ( Lahi ) and an ignorant heart ( Sahi ) can not be a supplicant ( da'ee ). The third constituent is Allah (or Mad'uo —the invoked one). This means that the supplicant should recognize his God and should know that Allah is unique.

Now we will deal, in more details, with each one of these constituents so that we can use supplication with more insight and benefit from this treasure, which is of great significance to God's servants. The fourth condition for a supplicant is to be sincere. It means that he should call only God and no one else. فَادْعُوا اللَّهَ مُخْلِصِينَ لَهُ الدِّينَ. “Therefore call upon Allah, being sincere to Him in obedience.

40:14” A servant of God should not assume that anybody else could help him except God. His heart should be ready to invoke the One and Only God about his needs and tell Him his untold and hidden secrets and disconnect himself from any means other than God. If he sees that the superficial means is effective, he should realize that the effecter and influencer is God. In the holy Qur'an we read: أَمَّنْ يُجِيبُ الْمُضطَرَّ إِذَا دَعَاهُ وَيَكْشِفُ السُّوءَ.

“Or, Who answers the distressed one when he calls upon Him and removes the evil. 27:62” Yes, a non-afflicted and non-depressed person does not know who the real manager of the affairs is. But an afflicted and depressed person knows that the initiation and the end of everything is God alone. A real monotheist considers the others as a means to get to one's goals and knows that God has appointed them as an intermediary only.

Imam as-Sajjad (s) invokes God by saying: وَاجْعَلْني مِمَّنْ يَدعُوكُ مخلِصاً في الرّخاءِ دُعاءَ المُخْلِصينَ المُضْطَرّينَ لكَ في الدُّعاءِ.

✦ ✦ ✦