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Supplication is in fact not only the spontaneous
outpourings of man's heart before his Lord, but it is an
expression of his sense of nearness to Him, of His Might and
Power, of his confidence in His mercy, grace and blessings. If
one were to know how much a man supplicates, and what he
supplicates about, and how he supplicates, one would be able
to see how much spirituality is there in his soul. When a man
without any witness speaks with Allah, the soul stands
unveiled before its Creator. The higher the note he strikes in
his outpouring, the higher is the quality of the faith that is
imprinted upon his soul, and serves as a background to all his
thought and activity. Thus to understand the spirit of any
religion and appraise its value to life and society,
supplications serve as the key. The Prophet (may peace be upon
him) was a great believer in supplication and prayer. He made
supplications to his Lord with zeal and fervour, rarely to be
found in the religious literature of the world. One who cares
to read them cannot but be overwhelmed with the depth of
feelings with which the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him)
approaches his Lord, his intense love for the Great Master,
his deep faith in His unbounded Favours, his unshakeable
confidence in His Divine Mercy and unflinching faith in His
Might and Power, and his sense of deep humility before Him.
These are in fact the multi-coloured threads with which is
woven the delicate pattern of the Prophet's (may peace be upon
him) supplications. In Islam the supplication which a Muslim
has been instructed to make whether singly or in congregation,
whether at the appointed hour of ritual prayer or at any
sudden call or urge to His Lord, reflects the one single
attitude of submission, humility and closeness to God.
Whatever is the state of spiritual elevation of the
supplication he is made to keep this fact constantly in his
mind that he is a humble servant of the Lord. That is the
reason why most of the supplications in Islam open with an
invocation of the Divine Being; either the personal name of
God, i. e. Allah, is used or the descriptive title of His
Attributes are called out in order to make the worshipper
conscious of his own weak and dependent self before his
Master. In Islam man seeks to move God to help and grant him
what he desires, and at the same time he seeks unconsciously
to work upon himself through the realisation of what God means
to him, to strengthen, to renew and to refresh his own inner
life.
While the expression of dependence and trust is in reality
a prerequisite of supplication in Islam, it covers the whole
range of human life with all its needs, longings and problems.
Supplication finds expression in a deep and urgent longing for
self preservation and deliverance from the oppressive
situation, forgiveness of sins, elevation of the soul,
goodness of the worldly life and that of the Hereafter. This
consciousness of one's absolute dependence upon Him, which
pervades the entire stock of the Prophet's (may peace be upon
him) supplications, shows man's attitude of perfect
resignation before the Mighty Will of the Master, but this
resignation has nothing of the spirit of despondence and
despair in it; it rather illuminates hope out of conviction
that the Being Who is the Lord of man's fate can also help him
and save him even in the most trying circumstances.
The supplications of Muhammad (may peace be upon him)
eminently combine in themselves the mystical and the religious
traits. While the Muslim supplicates, he, like a mystic,
beholds undisturbed with concentrated gaze one Supreme
Spiritual Reality Who is the Embodiment and Repository of all
values. But, unlike mystics, he, in the hour of contemplation
in supplication, does not lose himself but realises himself to
be a humble servant of God and therein lies his spiritual
strength and unwavering confidence in God.
The one more distinguishing feature of the supplications
taught by Muhammad (may peace be upon him) is that these are
all permeated with the spirit of social fellowship. They do
not urge man to stand face to face with God in absolute
loneliness, isolated from all other human beings. Herein the
suppliant begs his Lord with the full consciousness of human
brotherhood and with a feeling that the distress which vexes
him is not his only, it is that of his brethren. The graces of
God and the salvation for which he longs are also the longings
of all believers, nay, of the entire humanity. There is no
doubt a deep touch of intimate personal and individual contact
with God in these supplications, but this contact is not of
the nature of a non-Muslim mystic in which the soul is
supposed to be unified with God losing all its individual
identity. Here the soul has a communion with Allah with full
consciousness of man's own self, his social surroundings and
responsibilities. That is why most of the supplications have
been expressed in the form" We" and Us".
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