The Prophet ﷺ said, Dua is the believer’s weapon, meaning that when nothing else works, dua will work.

Some duas stumble out of our mouths effortlessly; everyday duas asking for health and safety, and then there are ones we wield as secret weapons in desperate times. Duas we make in sadness, when our hearts are troubled, and when we can’t see a way out as the darkness engulfs us. Just as Yunus AS did from the belly of a whale, below layers upon layers of darkness. Like Musa AS as he prepared to face the biggest tyrant and oppressor of his time, like Asiya, moments before she met her Lord, and just as our beloved Prophet ﷺ did, asking for goodness and guidance every step of the way. So we call out, following the ways of those loved by Allah ﷻ, ever hopeful that our Rabb hears us, with firm belief that His mercy is bigger than anything we face in life. 

All of this is what I found myself trying to explain to my son. But as a parent, before I could introduce the concept of dua to my son, I had to first explain whom we make dua to. So I talked about our Creator, the One who is most near. I told him that Allah loves us more than we can ever imagine, that His mercy is vast and never runs out. He is Al-Aziz, the All-Powerful and the Mighty, for Whom nothing is difficult. He is the Lord of impossible situations, Al-Baseer, always watching us, and As-Sami, always listening to us. Allah Himself tells us that He is also Al-Mujeeb, the One who responds, the One who always answers our call. The One who does not turn His slave away empty-handed, and who descends to the lowest heaven every night, ready to answer anyone who asks Him.

My son listened in wide-eyed wonder, imagining all the possibilities, everything he could ask for, big and small. His fitrah and pure soul naturally inclined towards this truth we all bore witness to before we were sent to earth. 

I noticed something in myself, too, as he spoke: that as we grow older, our duas get smaller. We start thinking with a cynicism that is directly proportional to the years we spend on this planet. Looking with fondness at my son asking for infinite chocolate fountains and rooms filled with kittens, I thought I was the sensible one, the one who understood limits, while he was simply being naïve. And yet, here I was shrinking my own duas, trying to fit them into neat, cautious little boxes.

Sometimes life wears us down, and we forget who we are asking. We hesitate to ask for things hidden in corners of our hearts, the duas we struggle to make and are afraid to bring to our lips.

And I didn’t always understand this in theory, but then life taught it to me through different experiences. When I was a young mother to a 3-year-old child with a speech delay, my duas revolved around him: his well-being, his health, his speech. Then I fell pregnant, and my duas encompassed the baby that was about to come. We went in for a sonogram at 20 weeks, excitedly, having anticipated for weeks whether our firstborn would have a baby brother or sister. Our hearts were hopeful as we whispered, “Please Allah, keep the baby healthy, please Allah help my son talk, please Allah give me a smooth delivery,” simple duas that fell out of my mouth easily. 

The sonologist was quite chatty, moving the probe across my abdomen, explaining what we were seeing. Then suddenly she went quiet. And so did the heartbeat we had been hearing every 4 weeks. The baby had passed away, and we had to abort, we were told. The joy we were experiencing moments before turned to numbness and then grief. There were no answers either; these things just happen, as the doctors said. 

A year later, I miscarried again. The baby I was desperately praying for, clearly not coming. So I stopped. I thought I didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t being a good enough mother for my firstborn. He had colic as a baby, and then he developed asthma. At three years old, he could barely string a sentence together and clearly had a speech delay. So I blamed myself for all of it, convinced I was being punished;

how could I deserve another baby when the one I already had was struggling so much?

A lot of it was also due to my hormones, which I now know, thanks to hindsight. I had all the symptoms of a postpartum mother, but nothing to show for it, empty arms and for a while, an empty heart. 

Alhamdulillah, I had incredible support in the form of an understanding partner and family who offered strength and shoulders to cry on. And of course, my son was my biggest motivation to pull myself out of the fog of grief. As mothers, we can’t really afford to fling ourselves on the sofa for days on end, which I suppose was a good thing in the end. But I stopped praying for another baby altogether. I thought I needed to accept the fact that we’ll probably just have one child, and so I should focus all my energy on raising this precious gift. 

Do I Even Deserve to Ask?

I realised later on that we develop these internal narratives that shape the way we approach Allah. When we think we aren’t worthy of what we dream of, we begin to minimise our requests. Sometimes disguising our low self-worth as humility. We convince ourselves that we shouldn’t ask for too much, that we should be realistic, keep our expectations low, and not hope beyond what seems possible according to our limited human comprehension. 

We may also have regrets about past sins that prevent us from asking. I once listened to a lecture in which the shaikh said that sometimes our sense of unworthiness comes from regretting past mistakes that weigh heavily on our hearts. Yet Allah’s mercy is greater than any sin we could bring before Him. If we turn to Him sincerely, seeking His forgiveness and striving to do better, He welcomes us back.

Because our value does not come from what we achieve, but from the fact that we worship Him and belong only to Him. 

One of Shaytan’s most common tricks is to have us feel hopeless about making dua. Yet the Prophet ﷺ taught us that when we ask for Jannah, we should ask for Al-Firdaws, the highest level of paradise. 

Mu’adh bin Jabal said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say: ‘Paradise has one hundred grades, each of which is as big as the distance between heaven and earth. The highest of them is Firdaws, and the best of them is Firdaws. The Throne is above Firdaws, and from it spring forth the rivers of Paradise. If you ask of Allah, ask Him for Firdaws.’” (Ibn Majah)

Part of the problem is that we live in a world that teaches us our worth must be earned through our achievements, our productivity, our relationships, or others’ approval.

We see our worth measured through spreadsheets and resumes, and begin to think that love, success, and even blessings are things we must somehow qualify for. But Allah does not see us through the lens of worldly metrics.

He created us, knows us better than we know ourselves, and is aware of what’s in our heart, our struggles, our intentions, and our future in a way that we never can. He is Al Kareem, the Most Generous, and what may seem impossible to us is never beyond Him. 

What If My Dua is Not Answered?

For myself, I was also afraid of being disappointed and feeling pain again. So I stopped asking. Two years after my second miscarriage, my cousin, who was also like my best friend, suddenly passed away. The heartbreak I’d felt after losing my babies shrank in comparison to this loss. There were days I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I brokenly asked for healing, ease and mercy. Imperfect duas made with imperfect words.

In a few weeks, when I felt the world would never feel right again, out of nowhere, Allah sent me the opportunity to perform Hajj. I, who had stopped making heartfelt duas, who felt she was unworthy of His love and attention, how could I be invited?

Yet Islam repeatedly challenges this way of thinking. Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, commands us to ask and promises His response in return. He says, 

“Call upon Me; I will respond to you.” (Surah Ghafir 40:60)

I learned that when we make dua, there are three ways that Allah may answer it. 

• Sometimes, He grants us exactly what we ask for, and sooner than we expected. 
• Other times, He delays the answer because He knows a better time for it to unfold. All those years of waiting are simply a way to prepare us to receive His blessings at the right moment, when our environment, physical, mental and spiritual conditions are at an optimum level to appreciate and take care of the blessings we receive.
• And sometimes, Allah withholds what we ask for altogether out of protection. He is Aalim al-ghayb wa al-shahada (عالم الغيب والشهادة), “The Knower of the unseen and the seen”. (Surah Al-Hashr 59:22). He knows perfectly what will benefit us and what will harm us. There are doors we desperately want opened that Allah, in His mercy, keeps closed. 

The best part? All the duas that we think go unanswered are given to us as rewards in the hereafter. 

And so that year, when I felt all doors had closed, He paved the best path forward for me and called me to His house, the one built by Ibrahim AS, who made the dua,

رَبِّ اجۡعَلۡنِىۡ مُقِيۡمَ الصَّلٰوةِ وَمِنۡ ذُرِّيَّتِىۡ​​ ۖ  رَبَّنَا وَتَقَبَّلۡ دُعَآءِ‏

“My Lord! Make me and those ˹believers˺ of my descendants keep up prayer. Our Lord! Accept my prayers.” (Surah Ibrahim 14:40)

I stood where Ibrahim AS had stood and realised that the millions of pilgrims standing with me were the culmination of that dua. We are the descendants of believers who keep up the prayer; we belong to the ummah of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, whom he ﷺ was worried for, without even meeting us and made dua for us constantly. And there we all were, turning up due to divine invitation. Labayk Allahumma Labayk. Here I am, my Lord, here I am. 

It was as if Allah showed me that I was worthy to be amongst those that Ibrahim AS had made dua for, and hence worthy of His love.

He had honoured me and answered my Hajj dua that I had never uttered out loud, only whispered ever so cautiously in my heart, keeping it for another time. When He already knew, listened to and answered this dua, then how could I possibly think that I could hold back my other duas? I felt I had finally found the end of my tangled thoughts, ready to unravel them. 

Being Delusional in Your Duas

I had actually forgotten that it’s not about whether we deserve it or not – it’s about the power of the One we’re asking. Our faith demands that we have absolute conviction in Allah’s generosity. There is nothing beyond His ability to grant and nothing that can constrain Him. As long as we are not asking for things that are forbidden or sinful, it is not for us to decide whether we are worthy of something; that judgment belongs to Allah alone. He is the Best Judge, more merciful and compassionate than we can ever imagine. 

We shouldn’t make duas based on who we are, but because of whom we are asking. Allah’s treasures are infinite, and He gives beyond measure, so who are we to put terms and conditions on our duas?

Measuring our own worthiness against His limitless mercy is a fallacy. It is an obligation upon us as Muslims to dream big and ask Him with abandon, because the question is not whether we deserve Al-Wahhab’s gifts, but whether we truly trust in His power and promise.

Ten years ago, I sat in Arafah and broke down in front of my Lord. Emboldened by His mercy and invitation, I made duas as I had never before. Today, I write this sitting next to my nine-year-old rainbow daughter, in awe of His plans, His wisdom, and His perfect knowledge. Of knowing what time was right for me, the burdens I could bear and which ones I couldn’t.

The truth is that we are not entitled to anything Allah gives us, and yet, He keeps on giving. This life, the love of our family and friends, the air we breathe, a roof over our heads, the beauty of this world, the rain He sends down that helps food grow, moments of ease even in our hardest days – all of it is a manifestation of Allah’s mercy and love for His creation. None of it stopped while I was waiting. I continued to receive these every single day.

My biggest hardships turned into my biggest blessings, giving me a closeness and connection to Allah, which I might not have leaned into had I not gone through grief and loss.

Perhaps that is why Allah keeps inviting us to ask.

Narrated Abu Huraira, Allah’s Messenger ﷺ said, “Our Lord, the Blessed, the Superior, comes every night down on the nearest Heaven to us when the last third of the night remains, saying, ‘Is there anyone to invoke Me, so that I may respond to invocation? Is there anyone to ask Me, so that I may grant him his request? Is there anyone seeking My forgiveness, so that I may forgive him?’” (Bukhari)

We all have an open invitation every single day to ask for all the world’s treasures and beyond from the One who gave Suleiman AS a kingdom like no other. So ask Him and ask Him often. Ask Him in moments of certainty and in moments of doubt. Ask Him in the stillness of the night, when the world is asleep, and our hands shake and hearts tremble. I think the most beautiful thing about dua is that it is not reserved for those who have it all together. It is for the struggling, the hopeful, the broken, the grateful, the confused, and the exhausted. It is for those who feel worthy and those who don’t. It is for all of us.