Twelfth: Before offering his supplication, he should give charity.

Thirteenth: He should select comprehensive supplications which the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—stated were especially likely to be answered or contained Allah’s Greatest Name: when He is invoked by it, He answers, and when He is asked by it, He gives.

If a Muslim brings together these momentous matters in his supplication, it will hardly ever be rejected. There is, however, one matter to which the scholars have drawn attention and which must be carefully observed and fulfilled: while offering his supplication in full accordance with its conditions and proper manners, the supplicant should follow it by undertaking what it necessarily entails and what brings it to completion—namely, by striving earnestly and diligently to attain what he seeks. “Asking Allah for guidance entails taking all the means through which guidance is attained, both those pertaining to knowledge and those pertaining to action. Asking Allah for mercy and forgiveness likewise requires doing whatever one can of the means by which mercy and forgiveness are attained; these are known from the Quran and the Sunnah. If the supplicant says, ‘O Allah, set right for me my religion, which is the safeguard of my affairs, and set right for me my worldly life, wherein lies my livelihood,’ and so on, then this request and recourse to Allah require the servant to strive to set his religion right by knowing the truth and following it, knowing falsehood and avoiding it, and warding off the trials of doubts and desires. It also requires him to pursue and undertake the means by which his worldly life may be set right, and these vary according to people’s circumstances. And if the supplicant says, ‘My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents, to perform righteous deeds that please You, and make my offspring righteous for me. Indeed, I have repented to You, and indeed, I am one of the Muslims.’ 1,