Ninth aspect: Even if all created beings exhausted every effort to benefit you, they could not do so except with something that Allah has already written for you; and if they labored to harm you, they could not harm you except with something Allah has already decreed against you. They can benefit you only by Allah’s leave and harm you only by His leave, so do not pin your hopes on them.

Allah, Exalted be He, says: “Who is it, then, that could be an army for you to help you apart from the Most Merciful? The disbelievers are only deluded. Or who is it that could provide for you if He withheld His provision? Yet they persist in arrogance and aversion” (Al-Mulk 20–21).

Help wards off harm, and provision secures benefit. Allah also says: “So let them worship the Lord of this House, who has fed them, saving them from hunger, and secured them from fear” (Quraysh 3–4); and: “Have We not granted them a secure sanctuary to which fruits of every kind are brought as provision from Us?” (Al-Qasas 57).

Abraham, peace be upon him, prayed: “My Lord, make this a land of safety and provide its people with fruits” (Al-Baqarah 126).

The Prophet ﷺ said: “Is it not through your weak ones that you are granted provision and victory—by virtue of their supplications, their prayers, and their sincerity?”