Du'as

Note: This is the 5th post in our series on Tafseer of Juz ‘Amma.

In our last post, we talked about how the human race does taghaa if they see themselves as self-sufficient. Living in western societies, we see this all around us–people racing, fighting, stealing, overworking, to make a few more dollars so that they can “make it.” They buy lottery tickets so they can “make it” and be rich, rich rich!

The Prophet (salallahu alayhi wa sallam) used to make a du’a:

اللّهُمَّ إنِّي أعُوذُبِكَ مِن العَجزِ وَ الكَسلٍ

Why is this du’a important? For two reasons:

• Laziness is an attribute of munafiqeen. If this wasn’t bad enough, being lazy leads to procrastination, which leads to its own set of problems.
• It’s common these days for people to say “I can’t do it.” Like “I can’t pray at work,” or “I can’t achieve X.” The Prophet (salallahu alayhi wa sallam) would say a’oothubillah to that kind of talk. Think about it!

Action Plan:

Bismillah.

One of the things I decided to blog about is my own personal du’a–it’s not lifted straight from the pages of the Qur’an or Sunnah, but it draws from them. My goal was to have a du’a that:

• Is short, so I can recite it in sujood every rakah or every salah
• Is encompassing–covers every aspect (in this case, of the akhirah)
• Is easy to remember, so I can remember it as needed!
• Is easy, not full of hard-to-pronounce or hard-to-remember words.

The du’a is: