Commentary
Mentioned in previous verses were particular manifestations of the perfect power of Allah Ta` ala, and His major blessings. The present verses lead us to consider: When He is the Master of perfect power, the sender of all blessings, and the Lord of all the worlds, it naturally follows that He should be the One to be called upon and prayed to under all circumstances, whether in distress or in need. The attitude of by-passing Him and turning towards some other direction is ignorance and failure.
Along with it, identified in these verses are some rules of etiquette to be followed when making Du'a' (prayer, supplication). If due consideration is given to these rules, the hope that a prayer will be answered increases.
The Meaning and Etiquette of Du` a and Dhikr
The word: دُعَاء (Du'a' ), in the Arabic language, means to call upon someone to remove one's need. It is also used to remember in the absolute sense. Both meanings can be taken here. The verse says: اُدعُوا رَبَّکُم (Supplicate to your Lord) that is, call your Rabb for your needs, or remember your Rabb and worship Him.
In the first case, it would mean: Ask Allah alone for what you need. In the second case, the sense would be: Do your Dhikr and ` Ibadah for Him alone. Both these explanations have been reported from Tafsir authorities among the early righteous elders.
After that, it was said: تَضَرُّعًا وَخُفْيَةً (humbly and secretly). The word: تَضَرُّعً (tadarru`) means realization of inability, humility, and submission in a refined spirit of self-abasement (not found in the English language and its modern, secular, cultural context). And the word: خُفْيَةً (khufyah) means secret, secluded, or private (as opposed to open and public - as used in English too, but with no relevance to the dominant sense of secret in English bearing on the mysterious, the occult, and the whole field of espionage).
In the frame of these two words, described there are two important rules of etiquette which govern Du` a' and Dhikr. First of all, in order that Du'a' be answered, it is necessary that one appears before Allah Ta` ala as weak, helpless and simply unable to hold on his own, modest and humble, and submits to Him with a total negation of what is supposed to be pride, dignity, honour, ego, or self-view - and then makes Du'a'. Du'a' is a thing of the soul which requires that its words match the feebleness and humbleness of the maker of Du` a', that the manner of saying it remains a mirror of modesty, and that this overall humility should ooze forth from the very physical approach to this making of Du'a'. Given this anatomy and profile of Du'a', the common practice of making Du` a' these days cannot really be called the making of Du'a'. It would, rather, be the reading of it. What happens most of the time is that we do not know what we are saying and it has become a routine as we notice in common Masajid. Imams would usually say, rather read, some words of Du` a' in the Arabic language which they have memorized and do this at the end of Salah. Most of the time, in some areas, the Imams themselves do not know the meaning and sense of what they say - and even if they do know it, at …
