Asking from God in
Utter Helplessness

It was October 24, 2006. It was the day of Eid. I had gone to a New Delhi mosque to perform my Eid prayer. There I was sitting in a corner in the mosque. And with tears in my eyes, I was praying with great feeling and emotion, I was reminded of a tradition, which is mentioned thus in a hadith: “When the Eid day comes, God takes pride before the angels, and He says: “O My angels, what is the reward for these people who have performed this act?” Then the angels say: “O My Lord, the reward is that they should be fully recompensed for their actions.” God says, “O My angels, My Servants, men and women have discharged their duties and they have come calling upon me with dua. By My Honour and by My Majesty, by My Glory, by My High Position, I will certainly listen to their call.” Then God says, “Go back home, I have given you salvation and I have converted your bad deeds into good deeds.” In this way, they came back with their sins forgiven.” (Shu‘ab al-Iman, al-Bayhaqi, Hadith No. 3444)

I was reminded of this hadith and while thinking about this hadith I was moved that God was giving great rewards to people today, but these rewards were for those who had done some good deed and I had no such good deed to my credit.

Then I was reminded of another incident regarding Sir Sayyad Ahmad Khan (1898), founder of the Aligarh Muslim University. He once visited a Muslim Nawab for a donation for his then planned Muhammadan College (now Aligarh Muslim University). The Nawab Sahab was against some of Sir Sayyad’s ideas and he refused to meet him. But Sir Sayyad was not deterred. He knew that in the evening the Nawab Sahab had an outing in his horse-drawn carriage. At that time, the beggars would line the road in front of the bungalow. Nawab Sahab used to give something or the other to everyone.

Sir Sayyad reached there in the evening and, sitting with the beggars, he turned his cap upside down like the bowl which beggars keep before them. The Nawab Sahab came out as usual in his horse-drawn carriage. Then he saw Sir Sayyad sitting in the line of beggars. At this the Nawab Sahab was quite shocked. He said, “Sayyad, how is it that you are here?” Sir Sayyad replied: “Nawab Sahab, if you cannot give me a donation, you can give me alms.” The Nawab Sahab was moved at this. He got down from his carriage and took Sir Sayyad to his home. He gave him a large donation for the College.

Referring to this event I said, “O God, if I don’t deserve anything on the basis of my actions, then grant me Your reward as alms for, in the Quran, You have said that just as the one who performs a good deed deserves a reward, similarly one who asks for something is also held deserving of reward. If You give not only to the person who has done something, but also to the person who is just making a request, then certainly I can hope that You will treat me accordingly.”

I think that this is also an example of a dua with ism-e-azaam, which God granted that I should do by His grace and mercy. So far as my experience goes, dua with ism-e-azaam is not at all a repetition of words, learned by rote and neither is it a dua which one can think of in advance. This kind of dua is a direct blessing from God and it is like an inspiration which comes to one’s mind all of a sudden.