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The Prohibition of Praying against the Children
399. The Prophet (s.a.w.) said: “Do not pray against yourselves, do not pray against your children and do not pray against your properties.”1
400. The Prophet (s.a.w.) said: “Do not pray against your children, lest it is accepted by Allah.”2
401. Imām al-Sādiq (a.s.) said: “Any man who prays against his child will be stricken by Allah with poverty.”3
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The Praying of Imām al-Sajjād for His Children
402. Imām al-Sajjād (a.s.) said, in his praying for his children: “O Allah, make me obliged by keeping my children alive, making them righteous for me and allowing me to benefit from them!
O Allah! Extend their age for me, prolong their lives for me, raise the small ones, strengthen the weak ones, and keep safe and sound their bodies and their faith and moral traits for me. Make them well in their souls, their limbs and everything that I care for them of their affairs, and increase for me and through my hands their provisions!
Make them pious, God wary, insightful, hearing and obedient to You, and loving and advising to Your friends, and strict resistant and detesting all Your enemies! Amen!
O Allah! Strengthen my arm through them, straighten my bending back, multiply my number, adorn my presence, keep alive my remembrance, suffice me when I am away, help me in my needs, and make them loving towards me, affectionate, approaching, upright and obedient, and never disobedient, disrespectful, opposing, or offending!
Help me in their upbringing, their education, and my devotion to them. Give me among them male children from Your esteemed side, make that something good for me, and make them a help for me in what I have asked from You!
Give me and my progeny refuge from the accursed Satan, for You have created us, commanded us, and prohibited us, and made us desire the reward of what You have commanded, and fear its punishment! You assigned to us an enemy who schemes against us, gave him an authority over us in a way that You did not give us authority over him, allowed him to dwell in our breasts and let him run in our blood vessels; he is not heedless, though we are heedless, he does not forget, though we forget; he makes us feel secure from Your punishment and fills us with fear toward other than You. If we are about to commit an indecency, he gives us courage to do so, and if we are about to perform a righteous work, he holds us back from it. He opposes us through passions, and sets up for us doubts. If he promises us, he lies, and if he raises our hopes, he fails to fulfil them. If You do not turn his trickery away from us, he will misguide us, and if You do not protect us from his corruption, he will cause us to slip.
O Allah! So defeat his authority over us through Your authority, such that You hold him back from us through the frequency of our supplication to You and we leave his trickery and rise up among those preserved by You from sin!
O Allah! grant me my every request, accomplish for me my needs, withhold not from me Your response when You have made Yourself accountable for it to me, veil not my supplication from Yourself, when You have commanded me to make it, and be kind to me through everything that will set me right in this
world and the next, in everything that I remember or forget, display or conceal, make public or keep secret!
In all of this, place me through my asking You among those who set things right, those who are answered favorably when they request from You and from whom is not withheld when they put their trust in You, those accustomed to seek refuge in You , those who profit through commerce with You , those granted sanctuary through Your might, those given lawful provision abundantly from Your boundless bounty through Your munificence and generosity, those who reach exaltation after abasement through You, those granted sanctuary from wrong through Your justice, those released from affliction through Your mercy, those delivered from need after poverty through Your riches, those preserved from sins, slips, and offences through reverential fear toward You, those successful in goodness, right conduct, and propriety through obeying You, those walled off from sins through Your power, the abandoners from every act of disobedience toward You , the dwellers in Your neighbourhood!
O Allah! Give me all of that through Your bestowal of success and Your mercy, grant us refuge from the chastisement of the burning, and give to all the Muslims, male and female, and all the faithful, male and female, the like of what I have asked for myself and my children, in the immediate of this word and the deferred of the next! Verily You are the Near, the Responder, the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing, the Pardoner, the Forgiving, the Clement, the Merciful! And give to us in this world good, and in the next world good, and protect us from the chastisement of the Fire! 4