Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 39 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:39

قَالَ رَبِّ ٱنصُرْنِى بِمَا كَذَّبُونِ

“He said, "My Lord, support me because they have denied me."”

Saheeh International

Essence

A later messenger, rejected like Nuh, prays Nuh's prayer word for word: the prophets' du'as are an inheritance passed from one to the next.

A reflection

An inherited prayer

A young man clears out his grandfather's study. In a drawer he finds a small notebook of prayers, copied out by hand over sixty years. Beside one of them, in pencil, is his own name and the date he was born. He sits on the floor and reads that prayer many times.

This ayah repeats, word for word, the prayer Nuh made thirteen ayat earlier (23:26). My Lord, help me, because they have denied me. The similarity data marks the two as identical. Yet the speaker is different. This is a later messenger, Hud according to most commentators, or Salih according to others. One English translation in the source material even slips and names him Nuh here, so complete is the echo.

Why repeat it? Part of the answer is that the situation repeated. Another people, another rejection, the same accusation of lying. The second messenger did not need to invent a new prayer. The words had already been given, already answered.

The prophets' prayers are an inheritance in this sense. The Quran records them so that others can pray them. Many believers in distress still use them: Yunus in the darkness (21:87), Ayyub in his illness (21:83), Musa in his loneliness (28:24). Each was answered once. Each is offered again.

When you do not know what to say to Allah, you do not have to compose anything. Borrow a prophet's words. They have been tested in harder places than yours.

Choose one prayer of a prophet from the Quran this week. Learn it, and say it in your own trouble, knowing who said it first.

The full entry has 2 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.