Past eventOther · The Art of Supplication · Session 4

Why Supplications Are Not Answered

Saturday, 19 April 2025

God has promised to answer every prayer — and yet prayers go unanswered for years. Something in that sentence is wrong, and it isn't God's promise. This session sits with three familiar situations: a supplicant weeping through the night for a sick relative who is not improving, a young man praying for a marriage that never materialises, a prisoner of tyranny praying for release that does not come. In each, God's promise that "Call Me, I will answer you" seems to fail — and the session insists this cannot be, since God never breaks His word. What, then, is happening? The answer is built from the Qur'an's own prophets. Prophet Yunus, peace be upon him, absconded before God gave him leave, and his prayer inside the fish was accepted only once he acknowledged his own wrongdoing. Prophet Ayyub, peace be upon him, endured seven years of trial in which — as Imam al-Sadiq, peace be upon him, narrates — he never once complained, only saying "You are more knowledgeable of my condition", and his relief came once God had "found him patient". Prophet Zakariyyah, peace be upon him, asked for an heir "with longing, not with doubt", his persistence itself an act of worship rather than impatience. Even Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him, had his release delayed after asking a fellow prisoner — rather than God alone — to remember him. If delay is not denial, what is it a sign of? What the evening covers Three unanswered prayers. Sickness, marriage, and unjust imprisonment — the human situations behind the question. The trial of Yunus. Why his prayer inside the fish was accepted only after he recognised his own error. The patience of Ayyub. Seven years of silent endurance, and why that silence was itself worship. The longing of Zakariyyah. Persistence as an act of love rather than doubt. Yusuf's delay. How a small reliance on someone other than God extended his imprisonment.

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إِلَهِي لا تَرُدَّ حَاجَتِي وَ لا تُخَيِّبْ طَمَعِي وَ لا تَقْطَعْ مِنْكَ رَجَائِي وَ أَمَلِي إِلَهِي لَوْ أَرَدْتَ هَوَانِي لَمْ تَهْدِنِي وَ لَوْ أَرَدْتَ فَضِيحَتِي لَمْ تُعَافِنِي إِلَهِي مَا أَظُنُّكَ تَرُدُّنِي فِي حَاجَةٍ قَدْ أَفْنَيْتُ عُمُرِي فِي طَلَبِهَا مِنْكَ إِلَهِي فَلَكَ الْحَمْدُ أَبَداً أَبَداً دَائِماً سَرْمَداً يَزِيدُ وَ لا يَبِيدُ كَمَا تُحِبُّ وَ تَرْضَى إِلَهِي إِنْ أَخَذْتَنِي بِجُرْمِي أَخَذْتُكَ بِعَفْوِكَ وَ إِنْ أَخَذْتَنِي بِذُنُوبِي أَخَذْتُكَ بِمَغْفِرَتِكَ وَ إِنْ أَدْخَلْتَنِي النَّارَ أَعْلَمْتُ أَهْلَهَا أَنِّي أُحِبُّكَ إِلَهِي إِنْ كَانَ صَغُرَ فِي جَنْبِ طَاعَتِكَ عَمَلِي فَقَدْ كَبُرَ فِي جَنْبِ رَجَائِكَ أَمَلِي إِلَهِي كَيْفَ أَنْقَلِبُ مِنْ عِنْدِكَ بِالْخَيْبَةِ مَحْرُوماً وَ قَدْ كَانَ حُسْنُ ظَنِّي بِجُودِكَ أَنْ تَقْلِبَنِي بِالنَّجَاةِ مَرْحُوما إِلَهِي وَ قَدْ أَفْنَيْتُ عُمُرِي فِي شِرَّةِ السَّهْوِ عَنْكَ وَ أَبْلَيْتُ شَبَابِي فِي سَكْرَةِ التَّبَاعُدِ مِنْكَ إِلَهِي فَلَمْ أَسْتَيْقِظْ أَيَّامَ اغْتِرَارِي بِكَ وَ رُكُونِي إِلَى سَبِيلِ سَخَطِكَ.

O Allah! Do not turn back my request, and do not make my aspiration the companion of despair, and do not sever my hope and longing from Yourself. O Allah! If You had willed my humiliation, You would not have guided me, and if You had willed my disgrace, You would not have granted me well-being. O Allah! I do not hold such an opinion of You that You would turn me away from Your door regarding a need for which I have spent my entire life seeking. O Allah! To You belongs all praise—praise that is eternal and everlasting, perpetual and endless, praise that ever increases and never perishes, in the manner that pleases You and makes You content. O Allah! If You seize me for my crime, I shall seize upon Your pardon; and if You look upon my sins, I shall look upon nothing but Your forgiveness; and if You cast me into Hellfire, I shall inform its inhabitants that I love You. O Allah! If my deeds in Your obedience have been small, then indeed my hope in You has been great. O Allah! How can I return from Your court in despair and deprivation, when my good opinion of the generosity of Your being has been that You would return me saved and forgiven? O Allah! I have wasted my life in the greed of heedlessness from You, and I have worn out my youth in the intoxication of distance from You. O Allah! During the days of my delusion regarding You, I did not awaken, and in the time of my inclination toward Your wrath, I did not become aware.

Mafatih al-Jinan, Acts of the Year, Munajat Sha'baniyyah, Line 4