A Point of Benefit

In the Musnad and the Ṣaḥīḥ of Abū Ḥātim (1) it is related on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“No servant is afflicted by anxiety or grief and then says, ‘O Allah! I am Your servant, the son of Your servant, the son of Your maid-servant. My forelock is in Your hand; Your decree concerning me is carried out, Your judgment about me is just. I ask You by every name that belongs to You: the name You have given Yourself, or revealed in Your Book, or taught to any one of Your creatures, or kept unto Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen that is with You—to make the Quran the springtime of my heart, the light of my breast, the banisher of my sorrow, and the remover of my anxiety and distress—’ but that Allah removes his anxiety and grief and replaces them with joy.”

They said, “O Messenger of Allah, should we not learn these words?” He replied, “Indeed; whoever hears them ought to learn them.”

This tremendous ḥadīth contains several points of knowledge, monotheism, and servitude:

• First, the supplicant opens his plea with the words, “Indeed I am Your servant, the son of Your servant, the son of Your maid-servant.” This embraces everyone above him—his fathers and mothers—reaching all the way back to his first parents, Adam and Eve. Within it is adulation before the Lord, humble submission in His presence, and an admission that he is His possession and that his forebears are likewise His possessions. It declares that the servant has no door save the door of his Master, no bounty save His bounty, no kindness save His kindness; and that, were his Master to neglect him and cast him off, he would perish, no one would give him refuge or show him compassion, and he would be lost in the worst possible loss.

Included in this admission is the confession: I have no sufficiency apart from You, not for so much as the blink of an eye, and I have no