He, peace and blessings be upon him, also said, “Supplication and an affliction meet and grapple between heaven and earth.” This refers to the prayer that becomes a means for securing the desired outcome.
Beyond this lies what the Qur’an and Sunnah have declared: that Allah’s good pleasure, His joy, and even His laughter are occasioned by His servants’ righteous deeds, as the texts attest, just as His anger and His wrath arise on account of their misdeeds. We have discussed this topic in detail, together with the various statements and confusions people have voiced about it.
As for the supplications that have been expressly forbidden to be taken as causes, that issue has already been addressed. As for the majority of invocations that are not legislated, they are not themselves the cause for
(1) The word qala (he said) is missing from manuscripts B, J, and D.
(2) Manuscripts J and D read: yaltaqiyan (the two meet).
(3) Al-Hakim records it with the wording: “wa-inna al-balaʾa la-yanzilu fa-yatalqāhu al-duʿāʾu fa-yaʿtalijāni ilā yawm al-qiyāmah” (“Calamity descends and supplication intercepts it; the two grapple until the Day of Resurrection”). He states: “Its chain is sound, although the two Shaykhs did not include it.” See: al-Mustadrak, 1/123, Book of Supplication. The author also alludes to it in Majmuʿ al-Fatāwā, 25/191–92, without citing the source.
(4) For further discussion, see Sharh al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah, pp. 406–11, ed. Aḥmad Shākir.
(5) From this point up to the phrase fa-mā furiḍa mina al-adʿiyah (“as for whatever supplications have been prescribed,” roughly four lines) is absent from manuscript Ṭ.
(6) Manuscript A adds: min hādhā al-bāb (“of this chapter”).
(7) See the author’s Majmuʿ al-Fatāwā, 3/133, 138; 5/351–56; 6/88–105; 8/378; and elsewhere. The printed edition adds the remark: “in a different context.”