Divine Prayer

The Quran tells the story of how Adam made the mistake of eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, and was suddenly deprived of God’s mercy. He subsequently, felt very perturbed and prayed to God for forgiveness. In the words of the Quran: “Then Adam received some words [of prayer] from his Lord and He accepted his repentance. He is the Forgiving one, the Merciful.” (2:37)

The word talaqqa used in this verse, literally means ‘to receive’. It means that Adam received some words from his Lord, then accordingly, he prayed to God, and then God accepted his supplication. Here, the question arises as to what the form of this talaqqa was. It does not mean that God called to Adam, or that an angel came and inculcated in him these words. It would not be correct to make such an assumption here.

The fact is that it was a matter of inspiration. There is a hadith to this effect: “This is a light which is put in the heart of the believer.” (Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah, Hadith No. 34315) When an intense feeling of having erred builds up in a person, he turns towards God with grief and repentance and in total surrender to his Creator. At that time, he experiences spiritual feelings at the psychological level. This feeling becomes converted into certain particular words. This is called rabbani prayer. This kind of divine prayer is advance news of the acceptance of prayer itself.

Who will receive the blessings of this kind of divine prayer?

Only one graced with such prayer as can bring himself on to a level of total servitude, who can discover the full reality of the fact that he is the taker and God is the giver. When such feelings are experienced by a person, they give rise to moments when he establishes a special relationship with God. At that time divine words of supplication and remembrance of God start pouring out of his lips. The name of such inspired divine words of prayer is rabbani prayer.