THE SIXTY-SIXTH DISCOURSE On the commandment to make supplication, and the prohibition omitting it

Do not say: "I will not pray to God for anything because if the prayed-for object has been allotted to me it will surely come to me whether I ask for it or not, whereas if it is not in my lot, He will not give it to me by my asking for it." No, you should ask of Him all that you want and need of good things of this world and of the hereafter provided there is nothing in it which is forbidden and injurious, because God has commanded us to ask of Him and has urged us to that end. He says: Pray to Me; I will answer you (40:60). He also says: Ask Allah of His grace (4:32). And the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) says: "Ask from God while you are fully confident of the acceptance of your prayer." And Holy Prophet further says: "Pray to God with the palms of your hand." There are other sayings of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) like this. Do not say: "Surely I have prayed for certain things to Him but He has not given them to me, so now I will not ask anything of Him." You should rather persist in your prayer to Him. If it is a thing which is allotted to you, He will send it to you after you have asked for it, and this will increase you in faith and certainty and in realising His unity, and will help you in keeping away from asking of people, and help you in turning to Him in all your conditions and instill confidence in you that all your needs are fulfilled by Him. If it is not in your lot, He will give you self-sufficiency with regard to it and will give you pleasure with Himself, the Mighty, the Glorious, in spite of your poverty. If you are in the midst of poverty and illness, He will make you pleased with such troubles. And if it is a question of debt He will turn the heart of the lender from an attitude of sever demand into that of gentleness towards you, and of deferment and of provision of facility up to the time when it is easy for you to repay the debt, or to a mood which will make Him write off the debt or make a reduction in it. Then if it is not written off on your behalf or reduced in this world, God, the Mighty, the Glorious, will give you in the life after death a considerable amount of reward in exchange for what He has not given you in response to your prayer in this world because He is generous, free from want, and merciful. He will not disappoint either in this world or in the hereafter one who prays to Him. It cannot but bring in some benefit and acquisition, sooner or later. A saying of the Holy Prophet runs to the effect that the believer will see in the record of his deeds on the Day of Judgement some acts of merit which he had. not performed nor was aware of. He will be asked. "Do you recognize them?" He will say, "I do not know where these are from" It will be said to him: "Surely this is in recompense for your petitions which you made in your worldly life, and this is because in making these prayers to God, the Mighty, the Glorious, you had been remembering Him and acknowledging his unity and keeping a thing in its proper place and giving a person his due and discarding the ascription of might and power to your own self, and renouncing pride and vanity and boastfulness, and all these constitute good deeds, for which there has been a reward in the eye of God, the Mighty, the Glorious."