66.8 Supplication not to lose Allah's light and guidance
This important supplication from the Book of Allah is among those with which those close to Him, that is, sincere and God-fearing believers, have already turned to Allah the Almighty, turn to Him regularly or will turn to Him in the future.
Believers will call upon the Lord with this supplication on the Day of Judgment, when the light the hypocrites had will be extinguished. Seeing this, the believers will be filled with reverent fear and with humility and trembling will ask the Lord not to deprive them too of the light that has until then lit their way. They will ask the Lord of the worlds that this saving light should accompany them until they reach their goal.
They will realise that they need this light until they reach the final point of their journey, which includes both earthly life and life in the intermediate world (barzakh). Only on entering the gates of Paradise to remain forever in the abode of bliss can a person breathe freely. For only then will he truly feel safe and understand that the main trial of any member of the human race, the one called life, has been successfully passed, that it is behind him and there is no return to it.
The value of this light cannot be called into question. For even in this world, finding ourselves in pitch darkness and forced to move by touch, we feel uneasy and experience anxiety and fear, and we understand that with a bright lantern in our hands it would be much easier and more comfortable for us to walk. What, then, of the eternal world, of the Day of Judgment with its horrors? For this is the most important, decisive day in the life of any person. What would it be like to find oneself on this day without any light at all and to realise that one cannot see the road and does not know where to go, while not a trace remains of the success one hoped for?..
This supplication teaches us to trust in Allah and constantly to ask Him for help, and this applies both to this world and to the eternal world. For the Day of Judgment and the crossing of the bridge as-Sirat lie ahead of each of us, and we all strive for salvation, success, the pleasure of Allah and Paradise.
We know from the Quran and the Sunnah that Allah the Almighty will heed the supplication of the believers, and the blessed light granted to them will accompany them until, having successfully crossed as-Sirat, they find themselves in Paradise, having attained eternal happiness and understanding that now only joy and bliss await them, and that there will be no more fear, pain, danger, hardship or trial. And this will be a beautiful recompense for these people, who sincerely believed, sincerely repented and sincerely worshipped the Creator.
The believers will also ask the Lord for forgiveness, which will be yet another expression of their modesty and fear of God. So this supplication reminds us of the need to ask the Almighty for forgiveness for the sins that we, listening to Satan, commit in one way or another, and to try to repent of these sins in good time, as well as to correct our mistakes and learn from them. For sincere repentance bears only good fruit.
In this supplication we see not only a courteous address befitting a believer, “Our Lord”, but also the use of another means of drawing near to the Lord. These believers will say: “You are truly Most Capable of everything.” This is an acknowledgement of the boundless power of Allah the Almighty, and that nothing is impossible, difficult or beyond His strength. He can do all things, and He does what He wills. And He can, of course, not only bless any of His creations with a countless multitude of favours, but also make any of these favours lasting. And this is exactly what the believers will ask of Him in their supplication on the Day of Judgment. They will ask Him not to deprive them of His favour, in this case the light with which the Lord has already blessed them.
And the Generous and Merciful Lord will answer their supplication, leaving them this light for as long as they need it. And this answer to the supplication and the confirmation of a favour already given will be a new favour from the Almighty Creator. So this supplication teaches us to notice the many favours of the Almighty, to thank Him for them and to ask Him not to deprive us of these favours, but, on the contrary, to continue to bless us with them no less generously than now.