notifications_active Weekly Meshkat-e Noor Session: Thursdays at 20:30 at Haj Reza Mosque
Dear Professor, could you please critique this talk about prayer? Can prayer mobilize our inner resources so that, with God’s help, a sick person recovers?
I apologize for the image used in the video, as it is not suitable for this group.
A critique of a talk on prayer and healing, highlighting a contradiction in the speaker’s claims that divine destiny cannot change yet can be affected by prayer. The true nature of prayer includes asking for things not yet decreed and seeking changes to what has already been firmly decreed. The supplication of Laylat al-Qadr is one example.
There is a contradiction in what he says. At first, he states that destiny cannot be changed; then he says that supplication reaches back to before eternity and erases a destiny that has already been written. This is an obvious contradiction.
The reality of supplication and its effect also encompass matters that have not been decreed, for which we ask God to decree what is best—as in our supplications on Laylat al-Qadr and at other times. They also encompass matters that have already been decreed and established, for which we ask our Creator to bring about a change, as well as matters already decreed that, through His grace, the Creator changes in favour of the one who supplicates.
... و استجب لی فی جمیع ما سألتک و أرده لی و قدره لی و یسره و امضه و بارک لی فیه و تفضل علی به و أسعدنی بما تعطینی منه و زدنی من فضلک الواسع سعه من نعمک الدائمه و ...
..... أعطنی خیر ما سألت و خیر ما قلت و خیر ما ظهر و خیر ما بطن و خیر ما غاب و خیر ما شهد و خیر ما تعلم و خیر ما تقضی فی العلم و الأجل و الأمل و خیر الحیاه و خیر الممات و خیر القضاء و خیر القدر و خیر المسأله و خیر الإجابه و خیر الثواب و خیر العطاء و خیر اللیل و خیر النهار و خیر الدنیا و خیر الآخره و .....
He said: I heard him say, “Supplication turns back the divine decree and unravels it, just as a thread is unravelled, even when it has been firmly secured.”
To read more, see the book *Tibb al-Munajat*.