Then he said to him, “When you ask, ask Allah,” that is, place no reliance on any created being. Whenever you must ask, direct your request to Allah. Take, for instance, a poor man with no money: he should supplicate, “O Allah, provide for me; O Allah, grant me sustenance,” and sustenance will reach him from where he never imagined. Were he to turn instead to people, they might give—or they might refuse. Hence the hadith: “If any of you were to take his rope, gather firewood, and carry it on his back, that would be better for him than going to a man who may give him something or withhold it.”

The same applies to you: when you ask, ask Allah. Say, “O Allah, provide for me,” “O Allah, enrich me by Your bounty so I need none but You,” and other similar invocations by which you turn to Allah.

He also said, “When you seek help, seek help from Allah.” Seeking help is the act of requesting assistance, and you should not request it from any human being except in the most extreme necessity. Even then, if circumstances compel you to seek aid from a creature, regard that aid only as a means—a secondary cause—never as the main support on which you depend. Let the essential reliance be upon Allah, Exalted is He: “When you ask, ask Allah; and when you seek help, seek help from Allah.”

These two statements show that turning to anyone other than Allah in one’s requests is a shortcoming in tawḥīd (pure monotheism). For this reason, asking anything of someone besides Allah—whether small or great—is disapproved. Ask only Allah, and seek help only from Allah.