was in her womb. They brought their dispute before the Messenger of Allah—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—who ruled that the compensation for her fetus was a ghurra: a male or female slave. He also ruled that the woman’s blood money was to be borne by her agnatic kin and that her children and those with them would inherit from her. Hamal ibn al-Nābigha al-Hudhalī said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, how can I be held liable for one who neither drank nor ate, neither spoke nor cried at birth? Such a case should carry no compensation [that is, it should be left uncompensated].’ The Messenger of Allah—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—said, ‘This man is merely one of the brothers of the soothsayers.’1. This was because of the rhymed prose he had used.”

For this reason, some scholars counted the deliberate use of rhymed prose in supplication among the impediments to its being answered. Al-Qurtubī—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “Among them is that a person supplicates with words found in neither the Book nor the Sunnah, selecting affected expressions and rhymed phrases from booklets that have no sound basis and cannot be relied upon. He then makes them his habitual formula while abandoning the supplications used by His Messenger—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him. All of this prevents a supplication from being answered.”2.

The blameworthy kind of rhymed prose is that which is contrived and which a person labors to affect, thereby becoming distracted from sincerity and humility and diverted from humble entreaty and a sense of utter need. If, however, it arises spontaneously, without affectation, strain, or deliberate intent, there is no harm in it.

Al-Saffārīnī—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “One should not force rhymed prose in supplication, for it preoccupies the heart and dispels humility. If a person supplicates using prayers he has memorized, whether composed by himself or by someone else, without forcing rhyme, that is not prohibited.”3.