— exalted and transcendent is He, with no partner—for no one can deal with what lies beyond the causes allotted to every human being except the Originator of those causes, the Lord of all servants.
- His words: “and do not be helpless.”
Helplessness manifests itself in two ways:
First: to abandon action, neglect the means that lead to the desired objective, and resign oneself to laziness and incapacity.
Second: to fail to seek Allah’s help and to rely on Him for assistance with one’s tasks and aims, instead directing one’s concern solely to one’s own power, strength, and effort. A servant’s determination, if unaccompanied by reliance on Allah, will neither benefit him nor secure anything for him.
The universal laws Allah has set in creation favor no one; whoever makes use of them attains his goal. Yet there remain matters that lie beyond causes and created laws—none can manage them but Him, and they should be sought only from Him, exalted be He.
- A further aspect of helplessness is that a servant prays to Allah, asking Him to meet his needs and ease his affairs, but when he sees no apparent answer, he grows lazy and abandons supplication.
Ibn al-Qayyim said in al-Jawab al-Kafi: “Among the defects that prevent supplication from producing its effect is that the servant grows impatient, deems the response slow in coming, and therefore abandons the prayer. He is like one who sows a seed or plants a sapling, tends and waters it, but when its ripening seems delayed, he leaves it and neglects it.”
In Sahih al-Bukhari (6340) and Muslim (2735), on the authority of Abu Hurayrah, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The prayer of any one of you will be answered so long as he is not hasty, saying, ‘I prayed but no answer came to me.’”
- His words: “If something befalls you …” etc.
With this statement the Prophet ﷺ makes clear that when a person has exerted effort, exhausting his strength and capacity,