The Second Flash

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

When he called upon his Lord saying: “Verily harm has afflicted me, and You are the Most Merciful of the Merciful!”(21:83)

The supplication of Job (Upon whom be peace), the champion of patience, is both well-tested and effective. Drawing on the verse, we should say in our supplication,


 “O my Lord and Sustainer! Indeed harm has afflicted me, and You are the Most Merciful of the Merciful.”

The gist of the well-known story of Job1  (Upon whom be peace) is as follows:

While afflicted with numerous wounds and sores for a long time, he recalled the great recompense to be had for his sickness, and endured it with utmost patience. But later, when the worms generated by his wounds penetrated to his heart and his tongue, the seat of the  remembrance  and  knowledge of God,2    he feared  that  his duty of worship would suffer,  and so he said in supplication not for the sake of his own comfort, but for the sake of his worship of God:

“O Lord! Harm has afflicted me; my remembrance of You with my tongue and my worship of You with my heart will suffer.” God Almighty then accepted this pure sincere,  disinterested  and devout supplication in the most miraculous fashion. He granted to Job perfect good health and made manifest in him all kinds of compassion.3

This Flash contains five points:


-------------------------

1   See, Tabari, Jami‘ al-Bayan, xvii, 71-2; Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, vi, 426; Ibn al-Mubarak, al- Zuhd, 49.

2   See, Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi’l-Tarikh, i, 98-100.

3  See, Qur’an, 21:84, 38:42-3. Also, Bukhari, Ghusl, 20; Tawhid, 35; Musnad, ii, 314.