bring to mind that he is asking Allah for well-being: well-being of the body and well-being in religion.

His saying, “mend me,” refers to the repair of deficiency. Every person is deficient, negligent, and excessive against himself, whether by overstepping the bounds or falling short of them. He is in need of restoration, so that he may be made whole after being broken; for a person needs his deficiencies to be remedied.

These, then, are the meanings contained in these supplications which a person should bring to mind. If someone were to ask: Does not saying, “O Allah, have mercy on me,” suffice for all of this? For mercy, when mentioned without qualification, entails attaining what is loved and the removal of what is disliked.

The answer is: Yes, but supplication is a setting in which one should elaborate, though only in accordance with what is established in the sunnah. Elaboration does not mean using rhymed supplications that have no meaning, or whose meaning is unsound.

Elaboration in supplication has been prescribed for several reasons:

1. Supplication is an act of worship, and the more one increases in worship, the more one increases in goodness.

2. Supplication is intimate discourse with Allah, and Allah is the most beloved being to the believer. There is no doubt that frequent intimate discourse with the Beloved increases love.

3. A person should call his sins to mind in detail, for sins have different types; when one expands his supplication, he recalls them. Thus, among the supplications of the Messenger was: “O Allah, forgive me all my sins: their minor and major ones, their first and last, their open and secret ones.” (1)