Explanation of Ibn 'Abbas's Hadith on Night Supplication

The Shaykh : Then the author (may Allah have mercy on him) mentioned the hadith of Ibn 'Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him and his father) which is when he stood for the night prayer, he would say: So he began with His praise, then he said: When His Lordship (Glorified and Exalted is He) is based on praise, and praise is describing the Praised One with perfection along with love and magnification. This praise is describing the Praised One with perfection along with love and magnification. If the description of perfection is repeated, it is called eulogy. The evidence for this is His saying in the Qudsi Hadith: And His saying: It has been mentioned previously that the meaning of Lordship revolves around three things: creation, ownership, and management. So He is their Creator, their Owner, and their Manager. He pluralized the heavens considering the number, and singularized the earth considering the genus. Now, the heavens are seven by the explicit text of the Qur'an . As for the earth, there is no explicit statement in the Qur'an that it is seven, but there is what indicates that, such as His saying: The similarity here could not be achieved except by number, because the manner, size, and greatness do not resemble each other between the heaven and the earth. So it is established that the intended meaning is that they are equal in number. The explicit texts confirm this, such as the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): Meaning, by You the heavens and the earth stand, and You are the Self-Sustaining over them. So by Him (Glorified and Exalted is He) the heavens and the earth stand, and the heavens and the earth and those within them have no need of anything other than Allah for the blink of an eye. And He is the Sustainer over them as well. So the Sustainership here includes bringing into existence, preparing, and standing over the thing. As in His saying: Meaning, they stand over the women and take charge of their affairs. So Allah is the Sustainer of the heavens, meaning by Him the heavens and the earth stood, and He is the One who stands over the heavens and the earth and takes charge of the affairs of the heavens and the earth. Allah the Exalted said: This is one of the two meanings. The second meaning is that He stands over them and takes charge of their affairs. Meaning, by You the heavens and the earth were illuminated. So if Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) had not placed light in the heavens and the earth, there would be no light in them. Or that He Himself is the light, and He said that He is the light of the heavens and the earth, even if it is not in the interior of the heavens or in the interior of the earth. As in His saying: And it is known that the moon does not illuminate the heavens, but rather it illuminates the earth. He said: How many are these? Seven? A person might say, "Your saying, Your promise, Your meeting, Paradise, the Fire, and the Hour are seven, not six?" Your saying, Your promise, Your meeting, Paradise, the Fire, and the Hour are six. A person might say that these six things can be reported about with one word, saying: But the station of eulogy is a station of expansion, and for every station there is a speech. Your saying: "The Truth, the Truth" from which aspect? From two aspects. Because the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is either a command or a report. If it is a command, or if you wish to say, either a request or a report. If it is a request, it is just, containing the benefits. And if it is a report, it is truthful. And upon this is His saying: "Your promise is the Truth." A promise, whether it is a promise of reward or a promise of punishment, is truthful, containing no lie, and it must come to pass, because Allah does not break His promise. However, the promise of punishment, if the sin is not shirk (associating partners with Allah), is subject to His will. As in His saying: The meeting with Allah is truthful. He said: So you must meet your Lord. You must be alone with your Lord, with no interpreter between you and Him. He must ask you and make you acknowledge your sins, saying, "You did such and such on such and such a day." But between you and Him, then if you acknowledge and confess, Allah the Exalted said: This is how Allah accounts for the believing servant on the Day of Resurrection. As for the disbeliever, they are not made to acknowledge in this manner, but they are humiliated on the Day of Resurrection and called out to them in the presence of all witnesses. Meaning, truthful and established. And so is the Fire. Both are truthful, and both are currently existing, and both are existing, and both are created for eternity, made eternal by the consensus of the people of the Sunnah and the community. However, there is a slight disagreement regarding the eternity of the Fire. But the saying that it is not eternal is extremely weak, because Allah mentioned its eternity in three verses in the Qur'an. Allah the Exalted said: And Allah the Exalted said: And He said: And this is a report from Allah (Mighty and Majestic), a truthful report. And if they are abiding in it forever, it is necessary that the place in which they are abiding be made eternal. Now, he says: The Hour means the Hour of Resurrection is truthful, and it must come to pass, because Allah has informed, and what Allah has informed about is truthful. The preposition and the noun in the genitive case in His saying: is a preceding object to indicate restriction. "To You I submitted," meaning I submitted completely to Your law. And faith is located in the heart. So the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned the apparent religion and the hidden religion. The apparent religion is by Islam, and the hidden religion is by faith. The meaning of faith in Allah is affirming Him, which includes acceptance and submission. This is faith in Allah: affirmation that includes acceptance and submission. As for affirmation that does not include that, there is no faith in it. So acceptance of the report and submission to the request are necessary. For this reason, the people of the Sunnah and the community said that faith is speech with the tongue, action with the limbs, and belief in the heart. Meaning, I relied upon You completely, acknowledging my shortcoming, and I entrusted my affairs to You. And this is the difference between reliance upon a person and reliance upon Allah. Reliance upon a person is not reliance of need and entrustment. My reliance upon Allah is reliance of need and entrustment. Even if you entrusted a person to buy a need for you, you have relied upon him; you depended upon him to buy the need. But is this a reliance of absolute need and entrustment? No. If you wished, you could dismiss him. And if he contradicted what you entrusted him with, you would hold him liable. But your reliance upon Allah is reliance of need and entrustment; you entrust the matter to Him and attribute the matter to Him. And this is the difference that is not valid except for Allah, and the reliance that is valid for the created being. Repentance means returning. So to You I returned in all my affairs. I returned from disobedience to obedience. I returned to You in facilitating my affairs, in my provision, in everything. I turned to You in everything. I dispute with whom? With everyone who disputes with me regarding You. So I dispute by You. The preposition "ba" here is not for location, but for seeking help. Meaning, You help me in my dispute with those I dispute with. And it is possible that the "ba" is for location, and the meaning is "in You I disputed." Because the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) disputes in Allah, as Ibrahim was disputed with. So upon this, we say the "ba" is possible to be for location, meaning "in," and it is possible to be for seeking help. The difference between the two meanings is clear. If the "ba" is for location, the meaning becomes that I dispute in You when the disputant disputes with me and the arguer argues with me in Your names and attributes, I dispute with him. And if the meaning of seeking help is that I seek help by You in my dispute with others, both meanings are correct. If someone asks: Does the "ba" come for location? We say yes. In the Noble Qur'an: Meaning, and in the night. Meaning, my judgment ends with You. I do not judge to anyone other than You. So Your law is the judgment. So I judge to You and do not exceed Your judgment. And this is complete entrustment to Allah in creation and decree. And all these words and sentences that contain praise of Allah are all a means to what will follow. He said: So the "fa" here is called the "fa" of eloquence. And it is permissible for it to be for causality, meaning, because of that, forgive me. And forgiveness is covering the sin and passing over it, and it is not just covering. The evidence for that is that it is derived from the "mighfar," which is what is worn on the head during battle to protect the head from arrows. And the "mighfar" achieves covering and protection. So if you ask your Lord for forgiveness of sins, you are asking Him for both: covering and passing over the punishment of this sin. What is in His saying: And so in His saying, "What I delayed, what I kept secret, and what I made public," is conjoined to the relative clause. And what is conjoined to the relative clause necessitates that it be conjoined to the relative pronoun as well. And the meaning is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) asked Allah to forgive him what he brought forward, what he delayed, what he kept secret, and what he made public. And in these sentences, there is apparent expansion. There is expansion in them, because it suffices to say, "Forgive me my sin," because "my sin" is a singular noun with a possessive, encompassing all sins, what was kept secret and made public, brought forward and delayed. But the station of supplication necessitates expansion. Why? For matters: The first, and the most important, is for the one whom Allah has opened his heart to the pleasure of conversing with Allah (Mighty and Majestic). Because if any one of us had a beloved friend, would he not love to expand in speech with him and increase his speech with him? Yes, undoubtedly. You will find that if he sits with his friend whom he loves and they stand and talk, long hours pass as if they were minutes. Until some people, some friends, accompany their friend to his house. Do you know what accompanying means? It means walking with him to his house, they talk and walk slowly. So when he reaches his house, he turns back and accompanies the other, and so on and so forth. Perhaps the dawn will break if they are in the night and they are in this state. And this is an observed and known matter that a person loves to expand in speech with whom he loves. This is one thing. The second thing is that supplication is worship, and the more you repeat it, the more you increase in worship of Allah, and your reward increases with the increase of the sentences of supplication. The third thing is that expansion and detail necessitate the person remembering all these types that he expanded upon, explained, and interpreted. And the person's presence of mind regarding his sins in detail is more complete in repentance, because general repentance does not encompass all sins in presence of mind, even if it encompasses all sins in wording and meaning. But in presence of mind, it does not. So if you say, "O Allah, forgive all my sin," and you have committed sins that may be greater than what you imagine now, but they are absent from your mind, then if you mention them and detail them, this is more eloquent in repentance, because the indication of specifying the individuals is stronger than the indication of generality. Now, these are three benefits in expansion.