Ali 'Imran · Madani · ayah 194 of 200

Ali 'Imran 3:194

رَبَّنَا وَءَاتِنَا مَا وَعَدتَّنَا عَلَىٰ رُسُلِكَ وَلَا تُخْزِنَا يَوْمَ ٱلْقِيَـٰمَةِ ۗ إِنَّكَ لَا تُخْلِفُ ٱلْمِيعَادَ

“Our Lord, and grant us what You promised us through Your messengers and do not disgrace us on the Day of Resurrection. Indeed, You do not fail in [Your] promise."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Give us what You promised, and do not let us be exposed that Day: You never fail an appointment.

A reflection

The fear of finding out you were wrong

One commentary sets this half of the duʿāʾ beside another ayah. There will appear to them from Allah what they were not reckoning on (39:47). Then it draws out the thing people rarely say aloud.

A person may suppose, all his life, that his belief is sound and his deeds are good. Then on that Day it becomes plain that the belief was astray and the deed was a wrong. What follows, the commentary says, is enormous shame, complete regret, intense sorrow. Some called this the punishment of the spirit, and held it harder to bear than the punishment of the body.

And they offered an argument from the shape of this very supplication. The first thing these people asked for was protection from the Fire. The last thing they asked for was not to be disgraced. The sequence ends on the heavier item.

A woman sits a professional examination she has prepared for over two years. She leaves the hall early and pleased, and rings her husband from the car park to say it went well. In the corridor two others are arguing about question four, part b. She has never seen a question four, part b. There was a second page to the paper, folded under, and she did not turn it.

The twenty seconds in that corridor are worse than any twenty seconds of the exam. Nothing has happened to her body. Her whole account of the last two hours has been withdrawn and replaced.

That is the fear in this duʿāʾ, and it is why no amount of private confidence settles it. You cannot audit yourself with the instrument that may be miscalibrated. So the people of understanding do the one thing left. They take their confidence to Him and ask Him to check it, before the corridor.

The full entry has 7 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.