Answer: It is permissible, because this is supplication. It is authentically established that, during the prayer itself, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, supplicated against particular people and supplicated for particular people. He supplicated for the oppressed in Mecca and against the tyrants in Mecca (1). However, he was forbidden from supplicating against the tyrants by invoking Allah’s curse upon them (2).

But if one supplicates for a person in the form of direct address, saying, for example, “May Allah forgive you, O Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah,” the jurists say that the prayer is invalidated (3), because he has used the second-person pronoun. Direct address is not permitted in prayer, for the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Nothing of people’s ordinary speech is appropriate in this prayer” (4). They made no exception except for the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. They said: You address him by saying, “Peace be upon you, O Prophet”; but as for anyone else, do not use the second-person form in addressing him at all.

Yet there is some reservation in the heart regarding this view. For when you say, “May Allah forgive you, O so-and-so,” while praying, you do not feel at all that you are addressing him. Rather, you feel that you are bringing him vividly to mind, so much so that it is as though he were standing before you. It is authentically established that when Satan came upon the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, he said: “I curse you with the perfect curse of Allah” (5). Thus, he addressed him. Some of them said that this hadith