Supplication for Guidance: Quranic Supplications 1

During Ramadan 2023, Sheikh Faraz Rabbani gave a series of daily video talks on supplications in the Quran. This series of articles is drawn from those talks and the related eBook. This article is about asking for guidance. You can view the video series here.

In Surat al-Fatiha we make the most comprehensive supplication possible. The supplication for guidance, but we often neglect its meaning. The reality of supplication isn’t words that we say in devotion. It is the meaning of need that we express. And this supplication at the heart of Surat Al-Fatiha:

اهدنا الصراطَ المستقيم

“Guide us to the straight path”

is the most critical and urgent of our needs. 

We ask Him to guide us. To show us the way and for the way to be facilitated. Out of need we ask the One who fulfills all needs: Allah. That He guide us to the path that is straight – the path of the good of this life and the next. A path leading, like all paths, to an ultimate end: the eternal good of the next life. The eternal good pleasure, closeness, and love of Allah Most High.

Say It with Need

Say it with full meaning. Ask with neediness and with joy. Joy is one of the key components of supplication. Every supplication we engage in, we should engage in with utter need. Yet, with utter joy because the One we are asking is the One who taught us how to ask – Who told us: “Call upon Me, I will answer you.”

Every time you say: اهدنا الصراطَ المستقيم – “Guide us to the path that is straight,” say it with need. Intend that He guides you to His eternal good pleasure. To His closeness. To eternal reward. And intend facilitation in all the good that we seek of this life. 

May Allah Most High make us of those who are guided to the straight path.

Praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds.