Source: Nur-ul-Hudā, Prayer 8

The Salat

Arabic

اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ

عَبْدِكَ وَنَبِيِّكَ وَرَسُولِكَ النُّورِ الَّذِي لَمَعَ سَنَاهُ

فَاقْتَبَسَتِ الأَرْوَاحُ مِنْهُ هُدَاهُ

فَاهْتَزَّتْ وَرَبَتْ وَأَذْعَنَتْ لِذِكْرِ مَوْلَاهُ

وَتَقَرَّبَتْ إِلَى خَالِقِهَا قُرْبَ العَارِفِينَ

فَسَقَاهَا مِنْ مَخْتُومِ رَحِيقِهَا شَرَابَ الذَّاكِرِينَ

فَتَذَكَّرَتْ مَا نَسِيَتْ وَشَكَرَتْ لِرَبِّهَا وَأَذْعَنَتْ

وَاسْتَغْفَرَتْ خَالِقَهَا وَإِلَيْهِ تَوَجَّهَتْ

وَصَارَتْ تَتْلُو

﴾إِنِّي وَجَّهْتُ وَجْهِيَ لِلَّذِي فَطَرَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَ حَنِيفًا وَمَا أَنَا مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ﴿

وَسَلِّمْ عَلَيْهِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ

سَلَامًا يَلِيقُ بِمَقَامِهِ العَالِي

بِعَدَدِ تَسْلِيمِ النِّسَاءِ وَالرِّجَالِ

وَأَصْلِحْ يَا مَوْلايَ أَحْوَالِي

وَبَلِّغْنِي مِنَ الخَيْرِ مَآلِي

Transliteration

Allāhumma ṣalli ʿalā sayyidinā Muḥammadin,
ʿabdika wa nabiyyika wa rasūlika, an-nūri alladhī lamaʿa sanāhu,
fa-iqtabasati l-arwāḥu minhu hudāhu,
fa-ihtazzat wa rabat wa adhʿanat li-dhikri mawlāhu,
wa taqarrabat ilā khāliqihā qurba l-ʿārifīn,
fa-saqāhā min makhtūmi raḥīqihā sharāba dh-dhākirīn,
fa-tadhakkarat mā nasiyat wa shakarat li-rabbihā wa adhʿanat,
wa istaghfarat khāliqahā wa ilayhi tawajjahat,
wa ṣārat tatlū:
﴿innī wajjahtu wajhiya lilladhī faṭara s-samāwāti wa l-arḍa ḥanīfan wa mā anā mina l-mushrikīn﴾
wa sallim ʿalayhi wa ʿalā ālihi,
salāman yalīqu bi-maqāmihi l-ʿālī,
bi-ʿadadi taslīmi n-nisāʾi wa r-rijāl,
wa aṣliḥ yā mawlāya aḥwālī,
wa ballighnī mina l-khayri maʾālī.

Translation

O Allah, send blessings upon our Master Muḥammad,
Your servant, Your Prophet, and Your Messenger, the Light whose radiance shone,
so the spirits drew from him their guidance,
then they stirred and grew and yielded to the remembrance of their Master,
and drew near to their Creator with the nearness of the knowers,
so He gave them to drink from the sealed nectar, the drink of those who remember,
so they remembered what they had forgotten, thanked their Lord, and yielded,
and sought forgiveness from their Creator and turned to Him,
and began to recite (Qur’an 6:79),
and grant him peace, and his Family,
a peace befitting his lofty rank,
as many as the salutations of women and men,
and set right, O my Master, my states,
and bring me to the goodness of my final end.

The Reservoir

Our inner life often fails in one simple place: direction. The face turns all day. It turns toward urgency, toward comparison, toward distraction, toward whatever is loudest. Then our aḥwāl, our inner states, change with what we are facing. The heart calls it “life,” but it is often just drift.

This salat traces a different sequence. After the spirits borrow guidance and yield to remembrance, they reach a point where they begin to recite a Qur’anic vow of orientation. It is the vow of the ḥanīf, a heart turned in one direction, not split between Allah and the idols of the moment. It is not only a feeling of belief. It is a turning of the face toward the Originator of the heavens and the earth, with a single, unshared direction. This is what guidance looks like when it becomes lived. The face becomes a compass again.

Then the prayer teaches adab in how we speak of him ﷺ. It asks for salām befitting his lofty station. We are reminded that reverence has a shape. We do not offer something casual to someone immense. We ask Allah for a peace worthy of his maqām.

And then, with disarming tenderness, the text becomes personal. “Set right, O my Master, my states.” This is the honest request of the seeker who knows how quickly the inner weather changes. We ask for iṣlāḥ, not self-triumph. We ask for a good maʾāl, not a dramatic moment. In the same breath, we are joined to the universal chorus of salām from women and men, across places and times. We are not returning alone.

This is the door of this salat. Praise that re-orients, then becomes a plea for repair. A companion prayer for the days when we do not trust our own stability, and we need Allah to set our states upright again.

The Return

When the inner states feel scattered, return with a turned face and a repaired heart. This salat gives us language for orientation, reverent salām, and the plea for iṣlāḥ, so our direction becomes steadier than our moods. O Allah, set right our aḥwāl and bring us to a good maʾāl through blessings upon him ﷺ.

One word to carry

أَحْوَال (aḥwāl): inner states and conditions. A reminder that our states fluctuate, and we ask Allah for iṣlāḥ, not self-certainty.