Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 147 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:147

وَمَا كَانَ قَوْلَهُمْ إِلَّآ أَن قَالُوا۟ رَبَّنَا ٱغْفِرْ لَنَا ذُنُوبَنَا وَإِسْرَافَنَا فِىٓ أَمْرِنَا وَثَبِّتْ أَقْدَامَنَا وَٱنصُرْنَا عَلَى ٱلْقَوْمِ ٱلْكَـٰفِرِينَ

“And their words were not but that they said, "Our Lord, forgive us our sins and the excess [committed] in our affairs and plant firmly our feet and give us victory over the disbelieving people."”

Saheeh International

Essence

All they said was: our Lord, forgive us our sins and our waste, make our feet firm, and help us against the denying people.

A reflection

He will not start the bathroom until he finds the leak

A plumber will not begin the new bathroom until he has found the leak under the floor. The customer thinks he is stalling. He is not. He is refusing to tile over water.

Look at the order of this prayer, because the order is the lesson.

These men are in a battle. What they urgently need is to stop running and to win. And the first thing out of their mouths is a request for forgiveness.

The commentaries notice the sequence and explain it in several ways, which are worth having all three of.

One says the request for forgiveness is placed before the request for firm feet in war, and before the request for victory. The reason: so that their asking of their Lord comes out of purity and humility, nearer to being answered.

A second gives a reasoned account. Allah has guaranteed help to the believers. So when the help does not come, and the enemy is prevailing, that outwardly points to some shortcoming among the believers. For that reason repentance and seeking forgiveness must come before asking for victory.

A third reads the order as putting the clearing before the furnishing. You empty before you fill.

So this is not religious etiquette, and it is not grovelling. It is a diagnosis placed before a request.

And it runs directly against how most of us pray in trouble. The instinct under pressure is to go straight to the ask, with all the urgency we have. Anything else feels like a delay we cannot afford. Fix this. Get me out of this. Make it stop.

These men had far more reason to hurry than we usually do, and they still began somewhere else.

There is also something quietly freeing in it. If the shortfall is diagnostic rather than mysterious, then it is addressable. A situation that owes something to your own conduct is better news than one with no cause at all. Your own conduct is the one variable you were handed.

So change the order the next time something is urgent. Before the request, one honest sentence of forgiveness asked for something specific and real, named out loud. Then make the ask.

Do it tonight with whatever is currently pressing on you. Find the leak before you tile.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.