In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

The Hope of the Desperate

I have become hopeless and desperate; I have tried every route I knew; I turned to every person I knew, but none of them could assist me. I have been left with a feeling of regret for referring to them, for more or less they are humans similar to me.

For sure you have experienced such instances in your life. But truly who should we count on in our lives? From whom should we seek assistance? Imam Sajjad (PBUH) provides us with some answers in his prayer:

 “O God who grants whenever a servant asks from Him, and fulfills wishes when one counts on Him, and whence His servant recourses to Him, He allows him to get close. When the servant openly disobeys Him, He covers over his sin and hides it. When the servant relies on Him, He satisfies him.

My Lord, is there anyone who enters and asks to be Your guest but, whom You don’t respond with hospitality? Is there anyone who has dismounted at Your door, hopeful for forgiveness and beneficence, but that You have deprived him? My Lord, is it good that I come back from Your door, turned away in disappointment, while I don’t know any master famous for grace and kindness but You? How can I have hope in others while the key of all goodness is at Your hands? How should I have hope in other than You, when all of creation and order of being is in Your hands?

Should I cease my hope in You, while You have generously and benevolently granted me what I never asked for? Or that would You make me needy and dependent upon someone similar to myself, while I have held on to the thread of Your grace? O He through whose mercy the strivers reach felicity, and through whose vengeance the seekers of forgiveness are not made wretched!  

My God, how can I forget You, while You have always remembered me? And how can I neglect You while You are always protecting me? O Lord, I have held onto your grace, and in order to attain your blessings and forgiveness, I have expanded my dreams.   Hence my Lord, make me a pure through the purest profession of Your Divineness, and make me one of Your special servants, O You, who every fugitive recourses to, and who when one wants something becomes wishful to His presence; You are the best for putting hopes on and the most benevolent to be asked from.  

O He who does not reject His asker; or disappoint the expectant! O He whose door is open to the ones who call upon Him, and whose veil is lifted for those who hope in Him! I ask You by Your generosity to show kindness toward me through Your gifts, with that which will gladden my eye, through hope in You, with that which will give serenity to my soul, and through certainty with that which will make easy for me the afflictions of this world; and lift from my insight the veils of blindness! By Your mercy, O Most Merciful of the merciful!

Yes, how can we forget Him, when He always keeps us in mind? How can we neglect His presence while He continuously supports us?

(The above is a selection taken from “An Analysis from the Life of Imam Sajjad (PBUH)” by Hojatulislam Baqir Sharif Qurashi)⁽²⁾

The Roshd Website offers condolences to all Muslims, especially you dear friend, upon 25^th of Muharram, the anniversary of the martyrdom of the exemplar of worshipping and the fourth Imam, Imam Ali ibn Hussain (PBUH).

Roshd Islamic Shia Website

Footnotes:

1- This Supplication is also known as “Whispered Prayer of the Hopefuls” (Munajaat Raajin); it is one of the fifteen whispered prayers by Imam Sajjad (PBUH) which are among the most valuable collection of prayers from him.

2- The Farsi translation of the above reference is done by Mr. Mohammad Reza ‘Atayee.