Causes for the Non-Answering of Supplication
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah reward you. Honorable Shaykh, a questioner says: A person supplicates but is not answered. What are the reasons for that? And Allah says:[Ghafir 40:60]?
Answer:
The reasons from the side of the servant are the factors that prevent acceptance from the side of the servant. So the servant may supplicate and not be answered, either because he eats haram (forbidden) food, as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Purify your food and your supplication will be answered.” So if he eats from what is haram, Allah will not accept his supplication until he repents to Allah and leaves the haram. Or there may be another factor among the factors that prevent the acceptance of supplication, such as supplicating to Allah while his heart is heedless. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said: So it is not answered for him. This is if the reason is from the side of the servant. Allah may also delay it, even if the supplication is righteous and the one supplicating is righteous and upright, but Allah delays the answer for his benefit, for the benefit of the one supplicating. So Allah (Exalted and Majestic is He) delays it for him, and that becomes greater for him. For this reason, it came in the hadith: Then he leaves off supplicating. Rather, he supplicates to Allah the Exalted and makes his supplication sincere to Allah, and he does not despair of the mercy of Allah. Yes.
May Allah reward you. Honorable Shaykh, a questioner says: A person supplicates but is not answered. What are the reasons for that? And Allah says:
Call upon Me; I will respond to you.
ادْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْAnswer:
The reasons from the side of the servant are the factors that prevent acceptance from the side of the servant. So the servant may supplicate and not be answered, either because he eats haram (forbidden) food, as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Purify your food and your supplication will be answered.” So if he eats from what is haram, Allah will not accept his supplication until he repents to Allah and leaves the haram. Or there may be another factor among the factors that prevent the acceptance of supplication, such as supplicating to Allah while his heart is heedless. He (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
Indeed, supplication is not answered from a heedless, distracted heart
إن الدعاء لا يستجاب من قلب غافل لاهAnd he may be supplicating with sin or with severing the ties of kinship
وقد يكون يدعو بإثم أو بقطيعة رحمThat it is not permissible for the servant to say, “I have supplicated and supplicated, but I have not been answered”
أنه لا يجوز أن يقول العبد قد دعوت ودعوت فلم يستجب لي
Source
أسباب عدم إجابة الدعاء. — af.org.sa
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.