Keys to the Doors of Divine Mercy
Keys to the Doors of Divine Mercy: “O God, water us with rain; unfold upon us Thy mercy through Thy copious rain from the driven clouds, so that Thy goodly earth may grow on all horizons! Show kindness to Thy servants through the ripening of the fruit; revive Thy land through the blossoming of the flowers, and let Thy angels – the noble scribes – be witness to a beneficial watering from Thee, lasting in its abundance, plenty in its flow, heavy, quick, soon, through which Thou revivest what has vanished, bringest forth what is coming, and providest plentiful foods…,
“…O God, give us water with a watering through which Thou wilt make the stone hills pour, fill the cisterns…make the trees grow, bring down prices in all the lands, invigorate the animals and the creatures, perfect for us the agreeable things of provision, make grow for us the fields, let flow for us the teats, and add for us strength to our strength!
“O God, make not the cloud’s shadow over us a burning wind, allow not its coldness to be cutting, let not its pouring down upon us be a stoning, and make not its waters for us bitter!
“O God, bless Muhammad and his Household and provide us with the blessings of the heavens and the earth! Thou art powerful over everything.”
The above passages are self-explanatory, especially for lands undergoing drought or lack of enough rainfall, and as a result of it, inflation, pollution and the like, which Tehran and other metropolitan centres in Iran are passing through at the moment.
These eloquently moving phrases that definitely open up doors of Divine Mercy when recited sincerely are parts of Supplication 19 of Sahifat as-Sajjadiyya, the book that has earned lasting renown as “Psalms of the Household of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA).”
The person who expressed these and several other uniquely dynamic supplications in the Divine Court needs no introduction. He was the great-grandson of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA). He was the grandson of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali (AS), and the noblest lady of all time, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA). He was the son of the Martyr of Karbala, Imam Husain (AS), and Princess Shahrbano of Persia.
He was Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS) or the Ornament of the Pious. His other famous epithet was Seyyed as-Sajedin or Chief of those who prostrate sincerely to the Almighty Creator.
Today on the eve of his martyrdom in Medina (Muharram 25) through a fatal dose of poisoning in the year 95 AH at the age of 57 years after a mission of 34 years during which he not just taught to the faithful how to attain the proximity of God through devotional expressions that unravel the fundamentals of faith and the wonders of nature including the weight and speed of light, but also spelled minutely all sorts of rights including those of our own bodily organs (embodied in the Risalat al-Hoqouq or Treatise of Rights), we briefly take note of the novel way in which he made Islam triumph over hypocrisy.
It was such a resounding victory that no tyrannical caliph ever dared to demand allegiance from an Infallible Imam – not even the accursed Yazid, who illogical demand of allegiance from Imam Husain (AS) rebounded upon him with the bloodcurdling tragedy of Karbala, and whose court the 4th Imam, along with his aunt Zainab (SA), shook to the very foundations, despite imprisonment, through their indomitable sermons.
It is a sad fact of Islamic history that these very days of Muharram 1371 years ago, as a youth of 23 years, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS) was being dragged in chains and fetters through desert tracts and isolated mountain paths with little or no inhabitation, from Iraq to Syria.
He was not the lone prisoner in this state of oppression. His wife was also a captive, and so was his young 4-year son, as well as his sisters, his paternal aunts, and other womenfolk and children of the Household of Prophet Muhammad (SAWA).
This was not the height of agony for him, since during the tortuous journey he had to endure the heartrending sight of the severed heads of his father, his brothers, his uncles, and his cousins, mounted on lances.
Upon release from prison he returned to his native Hejaz, but here also after the death of Yazid and the temporary decline of Omayyad rule, for ten long years till 73 AH, he was subjected to severe pressures and abortive plots against his life by another usurper and self-styled caliph, Abdullah bin Zubayr.
Finally in 95 AH, the 4th Imam’s brilliant expressions of devotions to God and the delineating of rights and rules for a civilized life, were cut short through a dose of poison by Walid the Omayyad – the first caliph in history who openly blasphemed the Holy Qur’an by tearing it asunder and who reduced the daily prayers to such a mockery that once he ordered his concubine to lead the congregational prayers in the mosque while in the state of ritual impurity, and the irony was that the so-called Muslims prayed behind this unclean women.
No doubt, the opening of the doors of heaven – to rainfall, to forgiveness, to correct cognizance of God and faith, and to success in all fields – lie in the fathomless wisdom of his supplications.