"Unto Allah (belongeth) whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth; and whether ye make known what is in your minds or hide it, Allah will bring you to account for it. He will forgive whom He will and He will punish whom He will. Allah is Able to do all things. (284)The messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) believers. Each one believeth in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers - We make no distinction between any of His messengers - and they say: We hear, and we obey. (Grant us) Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying. (285) Allah tasketh not a soul beyond its scope. For it (is only) that which it hath earned, and against it (only) that which it hath deserved. Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget, or miss the mark! Our Lord! Lay not on us such a burden as thou didst lay on those before us! Our Lord! Impose not on us that which we have not the strength to bear! Pardon us, absolve us and have mercy on us, Thou, our Protector, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk." (286)
closing 3 ayat of Surah al Baqarah, chapter 2, The Noble Qur'an.
....we Muslims are blessed with some very powerful statements, from within the Quran and outside the Qur'an, to fall on back to when we are faced with an insoluble, seemingly intractable problem.
" Subhanallah, alhamdullilllah, allahuakbar" being the greatest.
" Laaillahaillallah, huwahdahulasyarikallah lahul mulku walahulhamdu yuhyiwayumit wahuwa ala kullisyain qadir', yet another.
The ayat of 'the Lord of the Throne' probably the favourite when in situation of fear and awe. And many others as in the sunnah...
For me though, when things in my life appear topsy turvy,too heavy for my 'heart' to endure and really 'unsolvable' and beyond my realm, I normally go take an ablution, pray the sembahyang hajat a total of 4 cycles with 2 salam.
First rakaat after fatihah, I read Surah al Ikhlas 9 times. In the 2nd rakaat ,20 times, then finnish the Ist 2 cycles of prayer with a salam.
The 3rd cycle,similarly 30 times al Ikhlas following the fatihah and finally 40 al Ikhlas in the last cycle. A total of 99 times in all.
Al-Ikhlas
"In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Say: He is Allah, the One! (1) Allah, the eternally Besought of all! (2) He begetteth not nor was begotten. (3) And there is none comparable unto Him." (4)
Al Ikhlas, a 'heavyweight', equivalent to a third of the Quran, 99 times and Allah having 99 names...a heady mix of the sublime, with humble you, the profane.....
Additionaly, the last 3 ayats in Surah al Baqarah [ above ] has special connotation , sublimity and meaning. I read them a lot both in my prayers and as a form of 'doa'.It somehow soften the 'blows'.
Normally, after this kind of session, I find my problem or to put it more accurately, 'perceived problem', pales into insignificance...either it get solved later or God opens up my soul to the wisdom and humility to accept whatever happened 'seadanya'[ as it is ].
The interval taken for this prolong 'doa' give the necessary 'time element' for the 'neuronal-humoral-psychomotor' cascade to weave it's way and do it's magic on my soul.
And if I find I am still not restive , I repeat this daily, even for a month if need be.......It works magic! All the time. If things do not change[ usually more often than not, the status quo on the ground remained the same ], I changed...My perspective of the perceived problem changed. And just even with a change in perception, my world suddenly become lighter, often times, brighter!...The beauty of acceptance, 'Redha'.
Better still, this prayer be done in the stillness of the night, wee hours of the morning, in conjunction and proceeding an earlier two cycles of 'tahajjud' prayer and two cycles of 'taubat' prayer. 'Tahajjud' in the theoretical sense at least is 100 % for 'Him', followed by the 'taubat' prayer which in essence,with the proviso that if accepted, represent the expiation of your 'sin'.....only then the 'situation' is rightly set up for your 'hajat prayer.Remember the scene post Nabi when Abbas, our prophet's uncle was asked by the shahabats to pray for rain during a long drought.Abbas just simply asked for the expiation of his 'sin' first and only after that 'doa' for rain.
Do it one night, two for that matter, and every night if that is necessary.
Great for your soul!
We, mere simple ordinary folks, ignorant souls ,with lowly 'maqams', unlike the saints and sufis, have to have our very own simple formullae to come to a state of Redha, and if this is within the realm of the sunnah and the syariah,why not?
This is my usual personal modus operandi...
The sufis and the saints, they are different. They have attained a 'maqam' beyond 'human wants'!...They redha all the time. We ,mere mortals, have to work hard connecting with the 'divine' before achieving some semblance of it.
We are gifted with the template and the 'tools' handed down to us in the Qur'an and the sunnah. Just pick and choose and use it. The secret is in 'constancy' rather than 'volume'.
Huwallahualam!
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