good and ward off evil. How much of my supplication should I devote to you?” He replied:
“As much as you wish.”
When he went on to ask, “Should I devote all my prayer to you?”, he replied:
“Then your worries will be taken care of and your sins forgiven.”
In the other wording:
“Then Allah will take care of whatever concerns you in the affairs of this world and the Hereafter.”
This encompasses everything a person seeks through supplication: obtaining good and averting harm. Supplication brings about what is sought and wards off what is feared, as has been explained at length in the relevant discussions.
The scholars of Islam and the leading authorities in religion have set out the prescribed supplications and shunned innovated supplications. Their example should therefore be followed.
There are three levels in this matter:
— The first is to invoke someone other than Allah who is dead or absent, whether among the prophets and the righteous or anyone else, saying: “O my master so-and-so, rescue me,” “I seek your protection,” “I seek your help,” “Help me against my enemy,” or something similar. This is associating partners with Allah.
When someone seeks help from created beings, a devil may fulfill his need, or part of it, and may appear to him in the form of the person whose help he sought. He then imagines that this is a miraculous favor bestowed upon the one whose help he sought. In reality, it is only a devil that has entered him and led him astray because he associated partners with Allah, just as a devil speaks through idols, through a possessed person, and in other ways.
Such things occur frequently in our time and in other times. I know more instances than could be described briefly involving people who sought help from me or from others. They related that someone resembling me or someone else came to them and fulfilled their needs. They imagined that this was due to the blessing of seeking help from me or from others, whereas it was only a devil that misled them and led them astray.
This is the origin of idol worship and of taking partners alongside Allah Most High in the earliest generations of the past, as has been established. Thus, such a person has associated partners with Allah. We seek refuge in Allah from that.