116 – (Sound) Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, may Allah be pleased with them both, said:
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, used to teach us the istikhāra (prayer of seeking guidance) in all our affairs just as he would teach us a surah of the Quran. He would say:

“When any of you is resolved about a matter, let him pray two units of prayer other than the obligatory ones and then say:

‘O Allah, I seek the counsel of Your knowledge and I seek power through Your might, and I ask You of Your immense bounty. Surely You have power and I have none; You know and I do not; and You are the Knower of the unseen. O Allah, if You know that this matter’—and he should name it—‘is good for me in my religion, my livelihood, and the outcome of my affair, both its immediate and its distant aspects, then decree it for me, make it easy for me, and bless it for me. But if You know that this matter is bad for me in my religion, my livelihood, and the outcome of my affair, both its immediate and its distant aspects, then turn it away from me and turn me away from it, and ordain for me what is good wherever it may be, and make me content with it.’”

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