with consummate wisdom: were all people of reason, from the first generations to the last, to come together to conceive of any greater wisdom, they could not do so. Yet many people cannot grasp the details of the Lord’s wisdom, and some aspects of it are beyond the knowledge of all creation, even the angels.

Thus, when Allah Most High said to the angels, “I will place a successor on earth,” they said, “Will You place in it someone who will spread corruption there and shed blood?” He said:

“Indeed, I know what you do not know.”

A general understanding and an overall faith therefore suffice for them. Allah—glorified be He—has commanded them to ask Him for everything they need: guidance, right judgment, well-being in this life and the Hereafter, forgiveness, and mercy.

The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to say, as reported in an authentic hadith:

“O Allah, I ask You for guidance, piety, chastity, and self-sufficiency.”

He would also say:

“O Allah, grant my soul its piety and purify it; You are the best to purify it. You are its Guardian and Master.”

And he would say:

“O Allah, set right for me my religion, which safeguards all my affairs; set right for me my worldly life, in which I make my living; and set right for me my Hereafter, to which I shall return. Make life an increase for me in every good, and make death a relief for me from every evil.”

All of these supplications occur in hadiths recorded in the Sahīh.

Sahīh Muslim also reports that, when he rose at night, he would say:

“O Allah, Lord of Gabriel, Michael, and Isrāfīl, Originator of the heavens and the earth, Knower of the unseen and the seen, You