Have Dua, Will Travel

Our reliance on supplications is a protective measure against the accursed enemy, Satan who is present among humans and jinn at every time and place. There is an old television show called "Have Gun, Will Travel" yet a believer is armed with a weapon far more effective and powerful than the machinations or devices of mankind.  A believer is not paranoid and tied down to a weapon.  A believer walks with tawakkul (full trust) in Allah SWT not fearing anything except pleasing Allah.  Before safar (travel) even, we are to make a 2 unit prayer as we worship our creator who will make our travel a success not any item we could ever carry with us.

One should not go out unprepared as the Prophet SAWS reminds us:

al-Hakim reported in his Mustadrak from the hadith of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, radhiallahu 'anhu, from the Messenger of Allah sallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam that he said, "Supplication is the weapon of the believer, the pillar of the religion, and the light of the heaven and earth."

Further in some situations it is a request to our Lord above which will be answered at some point in the appropriate way:

Abu Hurairah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "Three supplications are answered without doubt. The supplication of the oppressed, the supplication of the traveller, and the supplication of the parent for his son." [At- Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud].

An example of a compilation put together in modern times is Al-Mutsurat by Hassan al-Banna who according to Wikipedia was "a school teacher and imam, best known for founding the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the largest and most influential 20th century Muslim revivalist organizations."  "His father, Shaykh Ahmad Abd al-Rahman al-Banna al-Sa'ati, was a Hanbali imam,^[1] muezzin, and mosque teacher."  The controversial political situation in Egypt then led to: "On February 12, 1949 in Cairo, Al-Banna was at the Jamiyyah al-Shubban al-Muslimeen headquarters with his brother in-law Abdul Karim Mansur to negotiate with Minister Zaki Ali Basha who represented the government side. Minister Zaki Ali Basha never arrived. By 5 p.m., Al-Banna and his brother-in-law decided to leave. As they stood waiting for a taxi, they were shot by two men. He eventually died from his wounds."

He left behind for us a powerful set of supplications which can be recited morning and evening called Al-Ma'thurat.  These are supplications that are also found in the famous Fortress of a Muslim supplication book which come from the various 6 canonized famous hadith collections.  To make for easy memorization, they appear in several formats including word-for-word as well as verse-by-verse or supplication-by-supplication.  Beneath the Arabic text is not only the English translation but a phonetic transliteration aimed at making them easy for someone to learn without having yet learned Arabic or help someone learn to read Arabic as well.

Download link: AlMathurat

Everyone should have many powerful supplications close at hand and close at heart.  This text should bring it close at hand after printing it out.  Then keep it near a place such as the bed or a chair one sits in every evening and morning to make sure to continuously recites it everyday until it is memorized to heart in which case the knowledge has been transferred from the paper to the heart by means of acts of worship using the mind and body.

The beauty of the supplications in the Quran and those left by our Prophet SAWS is that they are very general and general ask for the benefit of the whole world or whole Ummah over the benefit of ourselves individually.  We tend to ask too much for ourselves or specific others when we are all in need of each other's precious supplications.  May Allah make us prosper by making us ask him for that which will benefit us as a whole, a genuine and certain benefit.