Thus, in these hadiths, the truthful one whose truthfulness is attested stated that a supplication free of transgression must result in one of the following: the request is granted immediately, an equivalent good is granted later, or an equivalent evil is averted from the supplicant. This makes it clear that answering a supplicant’s request is broader than granting the very thing requested.

This resolves the difficulty raised earlier. The scholars have also mentioned two other answers:

The first is that the promise to answer the one who supplicates does not necessarily entail granting what he requests. One who supplicates is a broader category than one who asks, and answering a supplicant is broader than granting a requester what he asks for. As previously discussed regarding the hadith of the Descent, the two are distinguished in His words, Glorified is He: “Who will call upon Me that I may answer him? Who will ask Me that I may give him?” He thus distinguished between one who supplicates and one who asks, and between answering and granting. Nevertheless, this answer does not fully resolve the difficulty, because one who asks has also been promised that he will be given, as stated in the preceding hadith.

The second answer is that supplication’s relation to receiving an answer is like that of all other righteous deeds to receiving reward. Supplication is a cause that leads to attaining what is sought, but a cause is subject to conditions and impediments. If its conditions are fulfilled and its impediments absent, what is sought is attained; otherwise, it is not. The same applies to the acceptance of righteous deeds and good words. The discussion of this subject will continue.