The Right Approach to Duaa
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-08T20:39:42.580491+00:00 | Topic: Justice
The Right Approach to Duaa
Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan
Opening Supplications
أَمَّا بَعْدُ، رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ
"O Allah, make us among those who believe, do righteous deeds, and advise each other to truth and advise each other to patience, and make us steadfast at the time of death with the statement, 'There is no god but Allah.'"
"O Allah, expand for me my breast [with assurance] and ease for me my task and untie the knot from my tongue that they may understand my speech."
The Significance of Prophetic Duas in the Quran
All of you know that the Qur'an is full of many stories of prophets, and in all of those stories of the prophets you find a consistent feature. At one point or another, these prophets make du'a.
And a lot of these prayers are mentioned at very critical junctures, at a moment of great desperation, or great difficulty, when no other option is there, they turn to Allah and they make du'a. Those of you, I mean all of you here are familiar with the idea of storytelling, and how stories move from one major scene to the next major scene, to the next major scene, how things progress in a story. Actually the Qur'an's stories aren't just stories, they're actual history.
But you learn something about du'as in the Qur'an. Things move from one major event to the next major event, and the bridge between them is a du'a. In other words, the door to some kind of ease would not have opened up, if a du'a wasn't there in between.
Musa (AS) - A Parallel to Rasulullah (SAW)
This is the sort of thing that happens with Musa (AS) at one point in his life, and you know also that the life of Musa (AS) is something that's sporadic all over the Qur'an, and there are so many events of his life that are captured more than any other prophet in the Qur'an. Actually he's in a sense the most mentioned prophet and the most celebrated prophet of the Qur'an. Because he's also an example for Rasulullah (SAW) in that he has a very similar career to the Messenger of Allah.
I'll just make a couple of quick comments about that. Musa (AS) had two major audiences. The first major audience he had was Firaun and his people, basically the disbelievers.
And then once he migrated out of Egypt, his primary audience was his own people. And these people, many of them were hypocrites. And they gave him a hard time.
Even though they believed in him, they didn't believe in him. There was a confusion between those two things. This is very similar to Rasulullah (SAW) because his primary audience was the Quraysh, the disbelievers.
Just like Musa (AS) was Firaun. And just like Musa (AS) departed from Egypt, Rasulullah (SAW) also along with the believers left Mecca and they moved to Medina. The kinds of challenges the Prophet faced in Medina were from people who already believed.
Munafiqun, even among the Muslims, but also hypocrites among the people of the book who already believed also. And so we have the challenge of Musa (AS) and his audience paralleled with the challenge of Rasulullah (SAW) and his life in Medina. So there are many... and that's why the Qur'an mentions him so much.
There's so much of his life that will become serve as an example, as a case study for our Messenger (AS) and the struggles that the Muslims are going through, whether they were in Mecca or they were in Medina. Regardless, there are some events of his life that Allah particularly highlights. And you should also know that I was talking to a rabbi not too long ago about the life of Moses and how big of a deal is the Sira of Musa (AS) in Jewish studies.
And four of the five major books of the Hebrew Bible are actually dedicated to his life. The majority of them are just covering the life of Musa (AS). So he's a very fundamental figure also. Of course, it's called Torah of Moshe in their tradition, the Torah of Musa.
The Pre-Prophethood Life of Musa (AS)
That's what they call it on their own anyway. But regardless, this prayer that I wanted to get to is something that happened before Musa (AS) became a prophet. He becomes a Messenger of Allah when Allah calls him to the mountain and reveals himself to him, speaks to him directly, and tells him that he's been chosen.
"I'm the one that has chosen you, Allah told him by the burning bush. So listen to what's being revealed to you. That story is mentioned in the Bible. It's of course also mentioned in the Qur'an. But many years before then, what happened with Musa (AS) was he was living his life in Egypt. And he was actually raised in the palace of the Pharaoh.
And as this life of kind of a prince, that's where the Disney film borrows its name, The Prince of Egypt. Because he was in fact raised as a prince. Something happened.
He used to go out into the city to volunteer even though he was very well off. You can argue a millionaire, very strong. The Qur'an mentions how strong he was as a young man.
The Blessed Qualities of Young Musa (AS)
He was extremely knowledgeable and sensible young man. He was actually someone who had good judgment, even though young people don't have good judgment normally. And on top of that he was wealthy.
Wealthy young people really don't have good judgment. And on top of that he was very intellectual, knowledgeable. (وَعِلْمًا) Allah gave him knowledge also.
And then he gave him a spiritual connection to himself. A young man who's wealthy, spiritual, knowledgeable, wise, and strong. He's got all these incredible qualities as a young man.
And Allah describes him as a person of ihsan:
That is how we compensate the people of ihsan. In other words, he's got a deep profound connection with Allah also.
The Incident That Changed Everything
So he goes in the city to volunteer, because you know that he was from Bani Israel. Even though he was treated as royalty, he's from the Israelites, the slave people in Egypt. And it was illegal for him to help them.
He couldn't just go into the city and help those people. So he used to go in the middle of the afternoon, which is when the time the Spanish call it the siesta, you might be familiar. Qaylula, the Arabs call it.
There's a time in the day where everybody's asleep. Nobody's awake. The sun is too hot, so they don't even make their slaves do the work.
So this would be the time that he would go and help the people and volunteer and finish some of their jobs, because he won't get caught. Because you can't help the slaves, why are you helping them? So he would go:
The Quran describes it - at a time where everybody's knocked out. The city, nobody's around. So he goes at this time, and the streets are empty, and he sees two people that are fighting each other. I'm not here to tell you that part of the story, but the short version of it is, when he gets closer he finds, one of them is from his own people, the Israelites, and the other one is from the ruling class.
The Quran says, this one's from his enemy people. So he got upset that they're beating up my Muslim brother, and he goes and he throws a punch at the soldier, whoever was beating him up. And when he throws one punch:
Musa punched him and he was dead on the spot.
The Flight to Madian
The guy died on the spot. Now you've killed, what you can call, you killed a police officer. When a murder happens in a city, of course the cops are alerted. If a cop is killed, then the cops go crazy. Now they're gonna hunt somebody down. One of their own? That's a different story.
Musa (AS), in a sense, you can argue, has killed a cop. He didn't intend to, but that's what's happened. Now they're looking for him, there's a manhunt, and they don't know who did it.
But actually it came out, the guy who he actually helped, ratted him out and said, he's the one who did it, now everybody's looking for Musa. And he escapes Egypt, barely surviving with his life. The entire city is on a hunt for him, he's the most wanted man in the land, and he escapes into the desert.
Obviously no one in their right mind will think about escaping into the desert, it's death anyway. There's no shelter, there's no water, you're gonna survive one or two days, and you're gonna be dead. But he goes into the desert, and he asks Allah for guidance, as he walked into the desert:
Maybe my master will guide me to the straightest path. And that's what Allah did. Allah gave him like a divine GPS.
In a desert if you're walking, you could walk in a circle, you won't even know. Well, Musa (AS), he walked straight:
He walked straight in the direction of Madian, somewhere he's never been before. And Madian was a place where there was water, there's a township, and this is Arab land now.
The Two Women at the Well
So he gets there directly. And just about when he's about to be dehydrated and die of thirst, he gets there and he sees water. And he starts sipping on the water.
You know, destitute, desperate, homeless, fugitive from the law, and he's sipping on this water, barely surviving, and he sees two women. You know, he sees two women, and Allah says about them:
To put it mildly, they're playing tug of war with their animals. Meaning they're holding their animals back from drinking the water.
Now obviously in the desert, there's a few places where you have water, so everybody brings their animals to feed them there. And these girls are holding their animals back, not letting them drink. So he gets confused, what's going on with you two?
He goes to them and asks, what's wrong with you, what's your situation? So they said:
We can't feed our animals until this entire flock, everybody, all the men are done. Because these men down there, basically what they're saying is, those men are perverts. When we go down there and serve our animals, they start whistling at us, howling at us, hitting on us or whatever, making inappropriate comments. We don't wanna deal with any of that nonsense.
So we let all these men finish giving their animals their drink and leave, then we go feed our animals. And until then we have to keep pulling on our animals, because our animals don't understand that. They just see the water and they wanna go.
And the reason we're working so hard, and the reason we're out here, and we're not down there, why don't you have a man in the family? They explain:
Our dad is an old man. He's not capable of working anymore.
Lessons on Women's Work and Family Situations
Even though that's not the subject of my khutbah, the subject of my khutbah is actually the dua that comes. But what I wanted to highlight to you is, Allah in fact mentions a very strange situation. Typically you would imagine, that the head of the household or the male in the household is going to earn the income. They're gonna make the money.
But Allah mentions a situation where these two girls have to go in a hostile environment. It's not a friendly environment. These are men that are not friendly towards women, not respectful towards women.
That's why they have to hold back. And they don't have a choice because their father is too old. He can't do it.
There are situations in families where it's not the ideal situation, but it happens. Women sometimes have to work. They have to go seek an education. They're the only one that can take care of the family. That happens. There's nothing un-Islamic about that.
That's just what it is. That's life. And there's a reason Allah mentions these things because these situations occur.
It's not right for us to look at some family situation and say, oh look, their daughter works. Oh look, his wife works, etc. It's not right for you and I to make those judgments. We don't know what their family situation is.
Musa's Act of Service
In any case, these young girls say that we can't go down there. Musa (AS), I mentioned to you, was a strong man. He just grabbed their animals, went down there, moved the other people around like they're flies, fed their animals, brought them back, and then didn't say not a word to them, and went back:
Then he went back towards the shade. And that's where he made this dua.
So this man, who's barely alive himself, saw these two women that needed help, helped them out, and then went back, didn't ask for money, didn't ask for thanks, didn't say his name, nothing. Went back into the shade and said:
The Profound Dua
Master, there's no doubt about it that I, in regards to whatever you send my way, whatever you send from above towards me, any good you want, any good you wanna send me, I could totally use it. I'm bankrupt.
فقير in Arabic, فَقْر literally means for the back to be broken. When you have so much burden on your back, that you can't take anymore, and your back snaps. Like some of you work out, if you're squatting, if you put too much weight on the rack, you could sense I can't take anymore. That's actually when you're about to experience مَفْقَر, your back is about to snap.
He's basically saying, I am disabled at this point. I'll take any good you give me. I'm in this desperate situation.
Two Meanings of the Dua
He turns to Allah, and he makes this profound, profound dua. This has two meanings. The first meaning is, Ya Allah, I don't have a home. I don't have family anymore. I'm by myself. I know nobody. I got nothing. The only shelter I have is the shade of this tree. That's all I got.
Anything, any rizq at this point, I'm not gonna be picky. Whatever you send my way, because by the way, he was raised as royalty. When you're raised as royalty, you eat expensive food, you sit in comfortable housing, your ride is nice, everything is kind of a certain class, right? And there are certain things you're not so comfortable with.
Like, you know, for example, if you make a certain amount of money, then you're like, you're gonna go book a hotel in some other town. You're not gonna go get in a one-star, half-star motel. You're gonna get at least three stars, aren't you? You have some standards.
There's some kind of, or if you're gonna rent a car, you're not gonna rent like, some used, dinky Hyundai or something. You're gonna say, hey, what's the upgrade? You have certain standards. Musa (AS) has actually been raised, you can argue with a silver spoon.
He's been raised in pretty elite standards. But he's in this desperate situation right now, and he's not picky. He's saying, ya Allah, whatever You give me, I will take.
Whatever of any kind of good You decide, and I know that it will come only from You. It can only come from You because I got no worldly resources left. That's why Inzaal is mentioned:
It can only come from the heavens now. I'll totally take it, I'm bankrupt, I'm not gonna be whiny or picky.
Modern Application - Humility in Work
This by the way by extension is, somebody lost a job. They used to have a high paying tech job. They were making six figures. Now they don't have that job anymore. They've been looking for a new job. A year goes by, two years go by, three years go by, the savings have run out. There's no money left, they can't even pay the rent anymore.
Somebody offers them a job to drive a truck. Somebody offers them a job to work at a grocery store. Somebody offers them a job to drive a cab.
And he says, look man, I'm a programmer. I can't do this, this is beneath me. Yes, it is beneath you, but at this point, it's been three years, you need to be realistic.
Whatever you can get you take. (الْكَاسِبُ حَبِيبُ الله - al-kasibu habibullah) - The one who works hard and earns an income is beloved to Allah. It's not humiliating. Hard work is never humiliating.
And just on that side note, I go out of my way, especially when I travel to the Muslim world. I go out of my way if I take a cab or a limo or anything else, to make sure I get to know the driver. And to make sure I get to remind them that what they do is very honorable and noble. Because this is actually a sunnah of the Prophet (ﷺ). To remind people that do hard work, that they are honored by Allah.
You know what's happened in many of our cultures? The driver, the waiter, the cleaner, these people, they're treated like trash. Like they have no respect in society. The opposite is true in our deen. Musa (AS) is saying, whatever job you get me, whatever provision you provide me, I'm not gonna be picky, that's a gift from Allah.
Rizq is a gift from Allah. A job is a gift from Allah. So now, this is why our deen is so beautiful.
The guy who collects the trash, the guy who's cleaning up the bathrooms, all of these people are dignified people. Because they work hard to provide for their families. They are in fact, kasib. And therefore they are habibullah, they're beloved to Allah. And how can they be beloved to Allah and despised by us? How can we look down on someone who Allah loves?
The Second Meaning - Spiritual Hunger
That's the first meaning of this dua. But there's another meaning. The other meaning of this dua, is that the word khair can also not just mean worldly good. Ya Allah, whatever food you give me, whatever shelter you give me, whatever job you give me, I'll take it. Khair can also mean good deeds.
Khair also means good deeds. He's also saying, Ya Allah, I know I made a mistake. I didn't intend to kill this man, but I did it. And now as a result, I am in this desperate situation. But I know because I have a sin in my past that is haunting me. Because when you make a mistake like that, you think about the mistake you've made, and if you really have a good heart towards Allah, then you wanna make it up to Allah, don't you?
Like, how do I make sure Allah forgave me? And how do I make sure that this debit in my account is credited with some good deeds? Ya Allah, I was desperate, I'm dying, I'm dehydrated, but these two women needed help, I immediately helped them.
Ya Allah, if there's any other opportunity to do any other good, let me know. I could use it. I know I need to fill my account with more good deeds.
So even though he's desperate himself, he's dehydrated himself, he's barely surviving himself, he's also starving for more good deeds, to help people, to do something good. And here the khair that he did was not more worship, or fasting, or ibadah. His good deed was helping somebody who needed help.
The Lesson of Helping Others Despite Our Own Struggles
You know, he's in a situation where he needs help, isn't he? Actually, he's far more in need than those two women. But there's something even in his desperate situation he could help with. What are we learning here? You may have a difficult situation, I may have a difficult situation.
But even though we have difficulty from one end, we're still very capable of helping others in other ways. Allah has given us, maybe we're debilitated, incapacitated from one side, but very capable from other sides. And you can still provide help.
This is the desperation a slave should have, that whatever you give me, I'll take. I will accept. And so from here, what happens in this remarkable story, is a fa:
The Quran summarizes the story. These girls received help. So they went back home.
The Father's Response and Offer
When they go back home, their father says, why did you come back home so early? You usually wait until all the men are done, right? How are you home four hours early? They said, well, there was this man, he helped us out. What did he say to you? Did he ask for money? Did he ask for anything? They said, no, he didn't. He just went, looked like he was making dua or something.
So the father says, go get him. What a great guy. I mean, this is a society of terrible men, right? That's already been indicated. So he's a great human being. We should meet him, we should get to know this person. So one of them comes back and then says, my dad's calling you, he wants to pay you:
My dad is calling you to compensate you for the service you provided us, the animals that you fed for us.
Understanding How Allah Answers Duas
Now here's the thing. Ask yourself, did Musa (AS) volunteer to help those women for money? Did he want to get paid? No. He did it because it's a good deed. He did it, you could say, for the sake of Allah. Isn't it? And now one of these girls is coming back and saying, my dad wants to pay you.
If you and I were there, we would have been like, no sister, (جَزَاكِ اللهُ خَيْرًا - This was for the fee sabeelillah). I cannot take anything from this dunya because I did it for Allah. And Allah will provide for me.
I actually made dua to Allah that He will send something from the sky. So I'm waiting for that, you go home. Thank you. But thanks but no thanks. I expect my reward from Allah.
Musa (AS) is much smarter than we are. He understands, I just asked Allah for help and this girl showed up. And that's why the Quran says, he made dua, therefore this girl showed up:
In other words, that girl offering from her father's behalf that he wants to compensate you, is actually the help of Allah. That's the help of Allah. You don't turn that away. He went right away:
When he got to him. He went to him. And his life completely changed because he took that opportunity.
Overcoming False Pride - Takalluf
What I'm trying to get at here is that you and I have something called takalluf. We have something called a little bit of hesitation or when somebody is offering you help. No, no, no, no, I don't.
You're looking for a job. You're looking for maybe a loan. Maybe you're looking for some financial help, some kind of help. And people are coming, hey, I heard that you're in some situation, I'd like to help. No, akhi, I'm okay, alhamdulillah.
You're not okay, dude. You didn't go begging. Somebody came to you. They offered you help. That is how Allah... What did you expect? Allah will send an angel to you? And he's gonna come with, you know, golden currency for you from the sky and then your problems will be solved? This is how Allah helps? This is how Allah helps?
You know, this is... They say in Arabic, there's an old saying:
The dignity of a man is that he doesn't need other people. Nobody likes to be in need. I don't wanna be in a situation when somebody says, hey, here's $20. I don't wanna be in that situation. As part of our dignity, we wanna be independent. We wanna be able to provide for ourselves. It's embarrassing. It's humiliating.
I agree with that. And that's something that is an axiom across any dignified society. But at the same time, when help is offered to you, not when you went begging for help. When help is offered to you, then understand that that may be from the rizq of Allah. Then you don't turn it away. Then you actually consider it.
Recognizing Rizq When It Comes
Then you actually consider it. People turn away all kinds of rizq. People are coming, you have daughters, they're not getting married, you don't know anybody. Somebody says, hey, there's a proposal. No, no,
Conclusion
May Allah make us truly understand the spirit of the duas that are captured in the Quran and help bring the rizq in our life that Allah wants to bring by means of sincere dua to Him.
Closing Supplications
Indeed, prayer has been decreed upon the believers a decree of specified times.
Indeed, Allah orders justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded.
And Allah knows best what you do.
Allah is the greatest, and the remembrance of Allah is greater.