Random Facts about Prayers - Part 4

by Syed Adam Alhabshi

This is a simple series on some interesting facts on our obligatory prayers. For all of the articles in this series please click here.


Tonight is the 25th night. If tonight is Lailatul Qadr and you put into practice our tip for today it could be the equivalent of asking for forgiveness for your parents for 1000 months.

Fact 8: Seeking Forgiveness For Your Parents

I have mentioned in Fact 7 that there are many recitations that we can memorise to add more spice to our prayer. There’s a lot to pick from. I would suggest that you take those which are the shortest and most familiar to you. Practice it before thinking of adding any other. Better to be steadfast than to just do things in one go and forget about it later on.

One of the shortest extra recitation for ruku’ is Allahumaghfirli (O Allah, please forgive me) and for sujud is Rabbighfirli (My Lord, please forgive me). Maybe I could suggest you to start with these two first. It adds an extra objective to our prayers i.e. to seek Allah’s forgiveness.

As a scholar once mentioned, always seek for Allah’s forgiveness because we will never be perfect and will always have shortcomings. If you think that you don’t have any reason to seek for His forgiveness, then you have to seek forgiveness from Allah for actually having such arrogant thoughts.

As we seek for Allah’s forgiveness, my teacher further added that the Prophet SAW encouraged us to include our parents whenever we seek Allah’s forgiveness for ourselves. This means, after Allahumaghfirli in your ruku’ and Rabbighfirli in your sujud, say "wali walidaiya" (and also my two parents).

Start this practice now.

Even if your parents are still alive and MORE SO if they have passed away.

Never ever ever ever forget to seek forgiveness for them.

Practicing this little addition in your prayer will ensure that in one day, you would have asked for their forgiveness numerous times. Don’t wait to seek forgiveness for your parents when you are making your dua after prayers or whenever you remember to do so. Chances are, you’d forget about it. Furthermore, the number of times you do so in a dua would still be less than if you do it for every ruku’ and sujud that you make in your prayer.

Start doing it now and remind your siblings to do so too. Then, when you have children, remind your children to do so for you as well. And the cycle will continue on and on and on.

This simple extra recitation could be the reason we barely miss being placed in the Hellfire…

God knows best.

Posted in: Random Facts about Prayers, YMP Contributors