Ramadan 2025 | The Power of Prophetic Prayers | Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed | 03/12

Opening Du'a

In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful. O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad and upon the family of our master Muhammad and blessings and peace. O Allah, ease my heart and ease my affairs and solve the knot of my tongue so that it may understand my speech.

You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. O Allah, teach us what benefits us and benefit us with what You have taught us. And increase us in knowledge and action.

O Allah, enlighten our hearts with Your knowledge and use us for Your obedience. And guide us to what You love and are pleased with — from speech, action, intention, and guidance. Indeed, You are Able to do all things.

Du'a of the Day: Surah Āl-'Imrān, Āyah 8

One of the du'as of the Qur'an — Āyah number 8 of Sūrah Āl-'Imrān. Allah says:

"O Allah, do not allow our hearts to become crooked after You have given us guidance. وَهَبْ لَنَا مِن لَّدُنكَ رَحْمَةً — and grant us special mercy from Your end. إِنَّكَ أَنتَ الْوَهَّابُ — Indeed, You are the One who is the best of those who give gifts."

The Two Types of Qur'anic Verses

The discussion of these verses in Sūrah Āl-'Imrān is about the idea that there are two different types of verses in the Qur'an. Those that are understood — whose meanings are very clear — and then those that are not very clear. Allah mentions:

The آيَاتٌ مُّحْكَمَاتٌ — the ones that are clear and unambiguous — هُنَّ أُمُّ الْكِتَابِ — they are the majority of the book, they are the most important. أُم means mother — the crux of the book is found within those verses which are unambiguous.

وَأُخَرُ مُتَشَابِهَاتٌ — and there are other verses that are ambiguous. Either the application is ambiguous, or the meaning is ambiguous. فَأَمَّا الَّذِينَ فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ زَيْغٌ — as for those in whose hearts there is a crookedness, فَيَتَّبِعُونَ مَا تَشَابَهَ مِنْهُ — they go after only those verses that are ambiguous.

They leave the clear injunctions — what you have to do, what you don't need to do — they don't worry about that. They always ask questions about things that are not very clear. And this is so interesting, subhanAllah — the Qur'an is itself addressing this issue. Instead of having an Islamophobe, or an ex-Muslim, or someone else speaking about it — which they do — the Qur'an itself is saying, Allah Himself is saying, that there are verses in here that are clear, that's what you've got to focus on. And there are verses here that are ambiguous.

And then Allah Himself is saying that there are certain people who do not listen and do not apply the very clear-cut verses, but instead they go after the ones that are not clear. And what is the purpose of them going after those? ابْتِغَاءَ الْفِتْنَةِ — Allah says the purpose of it is they want to cause chaos. They want to cause confusion within the masses, confusion within people who are the layman, who do not have answers to these questions.

ابْتِغَاءَ تَأْوِيلِهِ — and they say, how can it be that something is unambiguous? How can there be something that is unknown? I have to know the meaning of every single thing. Otherwise it's not possible. Then Allah Himself says: وَمَا يَعْلَمُ تَأْوِيلَهُ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — no one knows its proper interpretation except for Allah.

Allah has revealed these verses in the Qur'an. Their meanings are ambiguous. And no one knows their real meaning besides Allah. You don't need to criticize, don't try to criticize the Qur'an. Allah says, I'm going to be the first one to tell you this — the Qur'an definitely has such words, has such verses, that you're not going to understand.

The Danger of Pursuing What Is Beyond Our Understanding

Like when it comes to the issue of taqdeer, a lot of brothers will ask: "Brother, explain this whole destiny thing." And so before we begin, I say, listen — already, it's not like you thought of this question. The Prophet ﷺ himself mentioned it. And every single scholar of kalām has mentioned it in 'aqīdah from day one. Taqdeer is one of those things that you're never going to truly understand. And whoever tries to understand it will fall flat on his face. Whoever tries to get to the bottom of it will never get to the bottom of it — he'll get to the bottom of Hell. Because what's going to happen? Eventually he will leave Islam. Eventually he'll say, "This doesn't make sense to me."

So going after something — they say, "Curiosity killed the cat." There are certain places where, honestly, if you go after things that are not meant for us, they will destroy your deen. And so if this were an afterthought, you could have said, "Oh, Islam is not a well thought-out, well-presented religion. The Prophet ﷺ didn't think things out. Allah did not think things out properly." No. From day one, Allah and His Rasūl ﷺ have been saying: there are certain things that are meant for you — go ahead, go for it. And there are certain things that are not meant for you.

Then the question is: why is it there? Because, guess what — we're humans, we're a creation. Allah is the Creator. We cannot possibly be at the level of the Creator. Allah does things in a manner that we simply cannot understand. And you can call that a test — a test for our faith, a test for our īmān. Are we going to keep our head low and move forward and say, "This is what it is"? Or are we going to sit there trying to object and criticize?

The Sign of Deep Knowledge

وَالرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ — Allah then says: those who have deep knowledge. What is the sign of deep knowledge? The sign of deep knowledge is not that you have an answer for every single question. The ulamā have said:

Part of knowledge is that you say "I don't know" for those things that you don't know.

That's also knowledge — knowledge to say, "Brother, I don't know the mas'alah. I don't know the answer." That's knowledge. While on the other hand, an ignorant person will say, "I know everything."

The Analogy of Fiqh: The Orange and the Orange Juice

SubhanAllah — fiqh, which is our law, it's sad to see how that jurisprudence that has kept Islam afloat for the past almost fifteen centuries — which is 100% taken from Qur'an and Sunnah — is being treated. It is like the orange and the orange juice. The fiqh is the juice that you sit and enjoy and you drink. And imagine someone's giving you orange juice, and you say, "No, no, no, I don't like this. I like only orange. I don't like orange juice." You're going to sit there and laugh at the person. "What are you talking about? I only like orange." What do you think this came from? This came from a squeezed orange — three, four of them, we squeezed it. Freshly squeezed, you have it right here.

And this is what the people who say "throw out the fiqh, I only want Qur'an and Sunnah" are doing. But where did the fiqh come from in the first place? When you say, "I want only Qur'an and Sunnah" — this is such a common question I get — that means you want your interpretation of the Qur'an and Sunnah. You think we should give you the authority as a person — mashallah, IT professional, physician, lawyer, business owner, real estate agent — with zero background of studying Qur'an, zero background of the sixteen or seventeen sciences related to that — we should depend on your interpretation of what hadith and Qur'an is? SubhanAllah. As opposed to 1,500 years of scholarship.

The Four Schools of Thought

Yesterday it happened in this very masjid. A person came — and I didn't hear the whole conversation he was having with one of the other imams — but he was shocked. He's like, "Did one of you lead the salāh?" He said, "What happened today in witr? What was that about? You stood up in the third rak'ah, and then what happened? I didn't hear anything. You said Allahu Akbar and there was silence." The qunūt. The brother says, "I've been Muslim for X number of decades, and I've read Bukhārī for this long. I've never heard of this, never seen this."

Maybe he was being inquisitive, trying to learn. But what you call "the empty vessel makes the most noise." The brother — why are you telling people you're ignorant? This is a problem: we sit in one community many times — and this is for Hanafis as well, who pray salāh in this masjid and are used to our three-rak'ah witr — you should know what's out there. When you travel, don't get shocked. There are many different ways of performing witr salāh. And there are many ways of performing lots of things — from people raising their hands throughout salāh, to people only doing it at the beginning; to people saying āmīn out loud, to people doing āmīn softly; to people moving their finger in tashahhud, to people not. There are all sorts of things — some of them are the Hanafi method, some are the Shāfi'ī method, some are the Mālikī method, some are the Hanbalī method.

But in any case, we're not here to cause problems. What we should say is: we should have respect for one another. The four schools of thought — haqq is within these four schools of thought. That's what the ulamā have said. There is consensus that the truth will definitely be found within these four. If not 100% in everything in one, it will be within the four. When you step out of it and you do something completely unheard of within the four schools, now you are traversing uncharted waters, and you don't know what you're going to get.

But sometimes people say, "I don't want to listen to one person's opinion — Imām Shāfi'ī, Imām Mālik." These schools are attributed to those whom Allah used to establish them, but they're definitely not the fiqh of one man. Even if it were to be the fiqh of one man — all the muftis of today put together cannot equal one of the four. I have no doubt about that. And nor should you if you read about them. Not our taqwā, not our knowledge, not our memory, not anything.

These are — like the Sahābah — people whom Allah chooses for a certain time. Allah chose the Sahābah. None of us can become a Sahābī. And Allah chose the imāms. They're not Sahābah — I'm not saying they are. However, Allah gave them these amazing talents that are very difficult to find afterwards: memory, retention, deep deep-diving into all various sciences to be able to connect the dots and extrapolate new masā'il. Things that are just so difficult to find today. What do we do? At most, we regurgitate what we read. That's what we do. We are nāqil al-fatwā — whatever fatwā has been written, if you ask me a question, I'm going to go try to find the answer and give it to you.

Then there are very few people who reach the level that will take the original text and be able to extrapolate a brand new mas'alah based on the masā'il that the previous ulamā have already written. It's sad to see how fiqh is being thrown out within fiqh circles or fiqh councils. That fatwās are being given based on ease — what does the ummah need right now? I understand what the ummah is going through to a good degree. But we have to have principles. Wallahi, if we throw away the principles, the deen will very soon become a big sandbox — just like the Christians and Jews made a sandbox out of their deen. Meaning everyone comes, builds a castle, breaks it, makes something else, breaks it. No uṣūl, no principles.

The Danger of Abandoning Uṣūl al-Fiqh

When we throw out fiqh and uṣūl al-fiqh and say, "We are in a modern era, we have to come up with brand new solutions unlike anything else, where we're going to directly extrapolate from Qur'an and Sunnah without any uṣūl," we're going to hear really weird new fatwās coming out. One fiqh council mentioned that, because of people having difficulty making it for Jumu'ah, we've got to create ease — so Jumu'ah time starts from Ishrāq all the way till sunset, anytime you want to pray. Now, where did you find this?

They found various extremely rare, isolated opinions that are not practiced upon — that no one from that madhhab gave fatwā on — within the Mālikī school and the Hanbalī school. Someone said in the past that Friday ends at sunset. Who doesn't know that? We all know that. So then, we should be able to pray Jumu'ah all the way till Maghrib? And then someone else probably said that the day starts after Fajr — and before sunrise it is makrūh — so anytime after sunrise you can go ahead and pray. You can pray Ishrāq, you can pray Ṣalāt al-Ḍuḥā. So go ahead and pray — Jumu'ah? This is a joke.

Similarly, there are many other examples which ulamā who are within councils have shared with me — that we're going in a direction in which we have no principles. We look at the person in front of us and say, "Let's just find something that fits your schedule, your ease." I'm very scared of what the future holds. Because when you break down the guardrails and allow the interpretation of Qur'an and Sunnah to be done directly, without the protective layer of uṣūl al-fiqh and without even considering what previous jurists have said — then you're opening up a door. Why should LGBTQ not be legalized within Islam? Exactly. That's exactly what certain people are doing — so-called Muslims, or Muslims — they say there is leeway in all these things.

That's just the beginning of where we're going to be headed. Even khamr — I told you this before — there are people who say, I actually heard a whole Egyptian scholar on Egyptian TV, in Arabic, citing different tafāsīr and āyāt of the Qur'an, and he says drinking is not harām, because the Qur'an just says فَاجْتَنِبُوهُ — "stay away from it." So it's not harām. What are you going to say to that? The can of worms will open — has already opened — when we throw out these principles.

So I wanted to make sure that we understand: please do not look down upon any of the established four schools of thought. Do not criticize them. Have respect for them. And understand that the haqq and the truth is going to be within these four schools. When we jump out of this — it's like the seatbelt: "Oh, I don't like it, it's tight." None of us like wearing seatbelts. Can I please enjoy the drive without it? But in the seatbelt's tightness is your safety. When you take off the seatbelt — Allah forbid — you have a high-speed accident, your body is going to be flung onto the highway and that's the end of it. So it looks restrictive, but in that restriction what is there? Protection and safety.

This is what your uṣūl al-fiqh and fiqh is. People feel that it's restrictive, but it is hifāẓat — a lot of protection. It doesn't allow people to just come and make up things. Since the Yahūd and Naṣārā don't have anywhere near the elaborate system, alḥamdulillāh, that we have of uṣūl al-fiqh and fiqh, and of continuous fatwā-giving in line with that — what has happened to their deen? There's nothing left of it. Just by name.

The Role of Human Scholarship: Kitābullāh and Rijālullāh

Now, there is ChatGPT — AI. But that has got no uṣūl al-fiqh. It will find a fatwā anywhere online from any madhhab — Shī'a, Qādiyānī, Hanafi, Shāfi'ī, Mālikī, muqallid, whatever. Anything. It will give you a fatwā. And we're all so excited — who's not excited about AI-generated fatwās? Everyone wants to say, "Mashallah, you hear about this project?" and the people behind it are so excited.

My dear friends, we don't know that behind this lies our demise. Our deen requires people. As soon as you make people obsolete, the deen is going to go. Because the deen has been passed down through people. You think Allah could not have created a system where the Qur'an could have been revealed on one of the mountains of Mecca and everyone would be told to come and grab it — buffet style? Allah already said:

"Allah created you and whatever you do." From this āyah, the ulamā say all inventions — all human inventions — are whose invention? Allah's creation. And Allah already said it. So all human inventions, naturally, are all in the knowledge of Allah. Why couldn't Allah bring this Bluetooth, ChatGPT, and all this stuff earlier — 1,500 years ago? Why have Rasūlullāh ﷺ go to Ṭā'if? Why have Rasūlullāh ﷺ go through so much difficulty in Uḥud? Why have him go through so much difficulty in Aḥzāb? And in Badr? Why have his children — six out of his seven — pass away in front of him? Why did all the Sahābah have to go through so much suffering?

Because there is something called Kitābullāh, and there is something called Rijālullāh. There is the Book of Allah, and there are the Men of Allah. That's a system. When we recite:

"Guide me to the right path" — do I just close my eyes and allow myself to wake up on the right path? No. That's not what it is. صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ — I'm asking You to give me the path of the people whom You have favored. غَيْرِ الْمَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا الضَّالِّينَ — save me from the path of those who have earned Your wrath and who are astray. What do we learn from here? We're asking from Allah to connect us with connected people. Because hidāyah does not come directly from the Book of Allah. Hidāyah does not come directly from books. Hidāyah comes when you take this book and you implement it into a person, and then you see a living example of the Qur'an.

Otherwise the Qur'an itself — Allah says on the fourth page:

Allah allows many to be misled — to go to Jahannam — through the Qur'an. وَيَهْدِي بِهِ كَثِيرًا — and Allah guides many through this. How could a person be misled through the Qur'an? It's when either you do not have a person in front of you, and you're using your intellect which has no knowledge and has been surrounded by نَفْسَانِيَّة and شَيْطَانِيَّة. With our nafs and our shayṭān put together, using our intellect, we start understanding the Qur'an — like the people who are trying to promote and legalize LGBTQ from the Qur'an.

Nafs and shayṭān, along with misunderstanding — نَفْس وَشَيْطَان وَعَقْل. They're very smart. The more smart you are, the more dangerous it can get, if it is not restricted in a proper place. Because when you use pure logic, you're going to raise questions that pure logic alone cannot properly answer. And if that logic is pushed by نَفْسَانِيَّة and شَهْوَانِيَّة — lust and desire — and by shayṭān — these are the types of issues that are going to rise up.

A person can be misled through the Qur'an if he does not have someone in front of him to guide him, and is using his pure raw intelligence together with نَفْسَانِيَّة and شَهْوَانِيَّة. The second type of person who can be misled even though he has the Qur'an, is one whose guide in front of him is a wrong guide — a deviant shaykh. There are many lost people and deviants out there, millions of them, who claim to follow Qur'an but have nothing to do with the Qur'an.

So my point is: our deen emphasizes that the Qur'an needs to be understood through a proper teacher who, subhanAllah, implements it. I remember a story — I think it was of Shaykh 'Abd al-Fattāḥ Abū Ghuddah, raḥimahullāh — written in one of the books, about someone who says, "You don't need to follow an imām." So then the person came and gave adhān. He said, "This adhān — Allāhu Akbar — you said it. Is it Akbaru, Akbara, or Akbar?" He said, "Where are you going to find that? Where is the knowledge of the correct pronunciation of the adhān?" You get that from your teacher. You say, "No, I have a copy of Bukhārī right here." But the tashkīl — the ḍamma, fatḥa, kasra on any book of hadith — that's been added only in the past ten to fifteen years in the latest editions. When we studied, we didn't have any ḍamma, fatḥa, kasra on it. You have to utilize your knowledge of naḥw and ṣarf to be able to read it properly. And then in some places your teacher will correct you — that even from a naḥw and ṣarf perspective, this might be how it appears, but this hadith has been passed down with this ḥarakah.

Just like even in adhān you cannot do your own ijtihād, you cannot use your own 'aql alone — you have to actually follow your teacher. So similarly, everything else.

Riwāyah and Dirāyah: Trusting Our Predecessors

Let me give you another example. When we say, "Brother, this hadith is authentic." "Oh, but why?" "Because it's in Bukhārī." "Who said so? Who said Bukhārī is authentic? On what basis have you decided that Bukhārī is authentic?" If I keep on asking you this, we're going to hit a wall within five seconds. We have to trust someone that this hadith is authentic, and the narrators are authentic, and the chain of narration is strong. This is called riwāyat al-ḥadīth — the passing of, the chain of the hadith.

So just like you and I must trust the predecessors when it comes to the narrators and the narration of the hadith, we also have to trust our predecessors when it comes to riwāyah — and what is the other word? Dirāyah. What is dirāyah? The fahm — the understanding of it. The way we have to trust others when it comes to the chain of hadith, we also have to trust our ulamā when it comes to the meaning and understanding of that hadith. The way in the chain of hadith and in the tradition of hadith we rely on our ancestors — in the same way, in understanding the meaning of the hadith, we also have to rely on our ancestors.

We are speaking about a very dangerous direction that the ummah is going towards — which is when we say we don't need a human element in understanding Qur'an and Sunnah. Just like in every other industry people are automating, computerizing, using robots to take people out — they are now trying to apply this in Islam as well. People are going to say: no one needs to come for a zakāt workshop, fiqh workshop, ṣalāh workshop, nothing. "I already checked it on AI. Why should we even ask ulamā, anything on any Dār al-Iftā'? We have AI."

Wallahi, I have experience, and my friends have that experience, in preparing a Jumu'ah khuṭbah using AI. Qur'anic āyāt — made out of thin air — completely fake. "Verse number this, āyah number this — the Qur'an says this." Where did you get this from? Complete fabrication. I know the Qur'an, I memorized the Qur'an, alḥamdulillāh. But I can't say that about every hadith — there are thousands and millions of hadith. So imagine how this can completely deceive people by making up Qur'an and hadith out of thin air, and making it look exactly like the real thing. That's what AI does — it's supposed to mimic, in human writing, the words of hadith and Qur'an. And an average person doesn't know better, because it's presented in translation. And the translation of the Qur'an is also not the Qur'an.

These things — hadith and Qur'an completely concocted — whether intentional or unintentional — this to me looks like exactly what the Prophet ﷺ said:

"You will surely follow the ways of those who came before you." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3456; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2669)

You're going to follow the footsteps of the previous generations — exactly whatever they did. If they went into a lizard hole, you're going to go into a lizard hole. They went astray, you're going to go astray.

Technology has its huge benefits — we had an Islam and Artificial Intelligence retreat here last year. It has huge benefits. I use it, we all use it. But understand, please — it has its limitations. When it comes to taking your deen, when it comes to taking your teachings of Islam, you have Kitābullāh, and you have Rijālullāh. You have the Book of Allah, and you have the Men of Allah. If you exclude the Men of Allah, you're going to be in a big mess.

And this is the reason why all of the ghawāyah, all of the ḍalālah, all the misguidance that has happened before and is happening now, is when you take out the true men of Allah — the women of Allah — throw them out, and say, "I'm going to understand the Qur'an in the way I want to."

Returning to the Āyah: The Rāsikhūn and Their Du'ā

Going back to the āyah of the Qur'an that we started today — Allah Himself is saying, there are people who go after those things that are ambiguous; they want to cause fitna, and they will be misled. وَالرَّاسِخُونَ فِي الْعِلْمِ — and those who have deep knowledge are the ones who have the ability to say: "I don't know." That's where I started off today.

They are the people who say, "We have īmān in every verse — the ambiguous one and the clear one. All of them come from Allah." وَمَا يَذَّكَّرُ إِلَّا أُولُو الْأَلْبَابِ — Allah says only the most intelligent people can discern this, only the most intelligent people can take heed from this. And to even understand what we just talked about, you have to have a level of intelligence in the eyes of Allah. Not just pure high IQ. Pure IQ doesn't take you anywhere if it's not guided with the nūr of Qur'an, the nūr of waḥy, the nūr of the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.

Then comes the āyah: رَبَّنَا لَا تُزِغْ قُلُوبَنَا — "O Allah, please, after we hear this situation, do not allow our hearts to become crooked after You have given us guidance." A little more detail on this du'ā, inshāAllāh, we will cover tomorrow, bi-idhni Allāhi ta'ālā, with Allah's permission.

Closing Du'ās

Oh Allah, we ask You to accept our fast, accept our Qiyām, accept whatever khair and good You have inspired us to do. Ya Allah, allow every single fast that we are keeping and every single night of Qiyām that we're doing — allow every single one of these days and nights to become a means of chipping away the rust from our hearts. Oh Allah, make it a means of chipping away the filth from our hearts, make it a means of removal of darkness from our minds and from our hearts and from every limb of our body.

Ya Allah, as we have almost reached the halfway point of this blessed month, Ya Allah, we ask You to allow us to truly start benefiting from the treasures of this month. Oh Allah, allow us to benefit, Ya Allah allow us to sense and feel and appreciate, Ya Allah, and internalize the spiritual benefits of this blessed month. Oh Allah, we ask You — do not make us from amongst the deprived ones, Oh Allah do not make us from the deprived ones — Oh Allah do not make us from amongst the deprived ones, both in this world and in the Hereafter.

Ya Allah, we ask You to grant us the ability to fall in love with the Qur'an, Ya Allah — to have conviction in every single verse of the Qur'an. Oh Allah, grant us the deep understanding of every single verse, allow us to practice on it, allow us to preach it. Oh Allah, make us men and women of the Qur'an. Oh Allah, make us men and women who are connected, Ya Allah, to the Rijālullāh — to the men of Allah. Oh Allah, we ask You to make us all from amongst those who are connected with people who truly embody the teachings of Qur'an. Ya Allah, save us from any detractors, save us from anyone who is misled and who is trying to mislead others. Oh Allah, we ask You to protect us from bad intentions, protect us from insincerity. Oh Allah, we ask You to grant us the ṣuḥbah of the pious, ṣuḥbah of Your chosen servants — allow us to be able to see the Qur'an be implemented, Ya Allah, in someone's life, and allow us to be able to model that.

Oh Allah, we ask You, Ya Allah, to fulfill all of our needs — the physical needs, the spiritual needs, the emotional and mental needs. Oh Allah, all those who are having difficulty in their marriages — we ask You to patch up their marriages. Oh Allah, all those who have difficulty in their rizq — we ask You to provide their rizq from unseen treasures. Oh Allah, all those who are having any physical difficulty — Ya Allah, grant them all complete, complete shifā'. Allow them to find the right ways to cure themselves, and allow them to adopt all the means to cure themselves. Oh Allah, we ask You, Ya Allah — those who are in difficult circumstances across the world — Oh Allah, we ask You to allow their struggles, their difficulties, and the natural disasters they are faced with, to be overcome. Allow them to be victorious against their challenges.

Oh Allah, we ask You, Ya Allah — unite the Muslim ummah, unite our hearts, allow us to feel the pain for one another. Oh Allah, make us from amongst those who supplicate to You earnestly every single day — during the hours of darkness and during the day in seclusion. Ya Allah, make us men and women of du'ā, make us men and women of du'ā, make us men and women of du'ā. Allow our children and our progeny to become connected to You. Oh Allah, we ask You — allow all of us to be connected to You. Oh Allah, whatever khair and good the Prophet ﷺ had asked You of, grant us that khair and good. Whatever evil the Prophet ﷺ had sought refuge in You from — grant us refuge from all of that.

Oh Allah, make it easy for all of our programs to be extremely well attended and extremely successful. Allow tomorrow's ifṭār for the converts to become a means, Ya Allah, of connecting tens and tens of converts, Ya Allah, to good families — and allow us to be there to assist them, Ya Allah, in their time of loneliness. Oh Allah, we ask You — those who are making niyyah of i'tikāf, Ya Allah, and those who did not make niyyah, allow them to make niyyah during the spring break. Oh Allah, those who have made i'tikāf — Ya Allah, facilitate for them their i'tikāf. And those who do sit eventually in i'tikāf — Oh Allah, make every single person in i'tikāf accepted, and make it completely transformative. Make it a means of their du'ās being accepted, make it a means of them finding Laylatul Qadr.