Bismillāh
أَمَّن يُجِيبُ الْمُضْطَرَّ إِذَا دَعَاهُ وَيَكْشِفُ السُّوءَ وَيَجْعَلُكُمْ خُلَفَاءَ الْأَرْضِ
Is He who answers the call of the distressed [person] when he invokes Him and removes his distress, and makes you successors on the earth…?.
Sūrat an-Naml No. 27, Āyat 62
In the verses prior to the above verse in Sūrat an-Naml, Allah ‘azza wa jalla shifts the discussion. In the previous pages, the sūrah narrated the account of past nations who rejected the truth such as the people of Fir‘awn, Thamūd, and Lūt. These communities brought punishment upon themselves by their actions, and this was contrasted with the narrative of Bilqīs, the Queen of Sheba, whose use of her intellect along with her humility led her to accept the message of Prophet Sulaymān ‘alayhis salām. After these historical accounts, verse 59 pivots to a universal, theological declaration:
قُلِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ وَسَلَامٌ عَلَىٰ عِبَادِهِ الَّذِينَ اصْطَفَىٰ ۗ آللَّهُ خَيْرٌ أَمَّا يُشْرِكُونَ
Say: All praise belongs to Allah, and peace be upon His servants whom He has chosen. Is Allah better, or that which they associate with Him? (27:59)
This question sets the stage for a series of five verses (27:60–64) wherein the Qur’ān employs a rhetorical device known in Arabic as taqdīr (implied omission). In verse 59, the comparison is explicitly stated: “Is Allah better, or that which they associate?” However, in the subsequent verses, the second half of the comparison is left unsaid. For example:
- “Is He who created the heavens and the earth…” (27:60)
- “Is He who made the earth a stable abode…” (27:61)
- “Is He who answers the distressed when he calls upon Him…” (27:62)
By omitting the predicate “better” as well as the second choice, “or the false deities they worship,” these verses instil a sense of how the comparison is so stark and the answer is so obvious. The mind of the reader or listener automatically fills in the blank.
Sincere Supplication
Regarding the specific verse we started with: why does Allah refer to the one who is doing du‘ā as being distressed (al-mudtarr)? Moreover, why is the condition “when he calls upon Him” added? At first glance, the condition “when he calls” might seem redundant, of course a prayer involves calling!
‘Allāmah Tabātabā’ī responds to these questions by saying that these expressions are descriptions of true du‘ā. A person in distress is someone whose ties to non-divine causes (asbāb) have been severed. As long as someone believes their wealth, doctor, status, or connections can save them, their heart remains divided. The mudtarr is someone who recognizes that no material cause can aid them, leaving Allah as their sole refuge.
Regarding the condition “when he calls upon Him”: often when we pray, our mouth asks Allah, but our heart is secretly relying on something else. ‘Allāmah explains that this condition clarifies that the verse is referring to when a true call is occurring, when the heart is genuinely directed to Allah alone. A similar description occurs in the following verse of Sūrat al-Baqarah:
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ ۖ أُجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِ
And when My servants ask you concerning Me, indeed I am near. I respond to the invocation of the supplicant when he calls Upon Me... (2:186)
When this takes place Allah’s response is guaranteed. This Quranic principle of how sincere supplication will always be answered by Allah is beautifully explained by Imam ‘Alī (a) in his famous advice to his son (Letter 31 of Nahj al-Balāghah):
Then He placed in your hands the keys to His treasuries by allowing you to ask Him. Whenever you wish, you may open the doors of His blessings through du’ā and seek the downpour of His mercy. Do not let a delay in His response cause you despair, for the grant is given in accordance with the purity of the intention. Sometimes the response is delayed so that it may increase the reward of the asker and magnify the gift of the hopeful. At times, you may ask for something and it is not given to you, but you are granted something better than it—either immediately or in the long run—or it is withheld from you for a reason that is better for you. For perhaps a matter you sought would have caused the destruction of your faith had it been granted to you.Therefore, let your request be for that whose beauty will endure for you and whose burden will be removed from you; for wealth does not remain for you, nor will you remain for it.
We pray that Allah (swt) blesses us with the opportunity and desire to sincerely ask Him and Him alone, especially in the pre-dawn hours. We ask Him, by the sake of Muhammad his pure family (peace be upon them) to bless the oppressed Muslims and give them a quick and lasting resolution to their problems.
Source: ‘Allāmah Muhammad Husayn Tabātabā’ī, Tafsīr al-Mīzān.