The Meaning of the Phrase (Ya Murtah) in Duʿaʾ al-Jawshan

In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful

And blessings and peace be upon the noblest of creation, our master Muhammad, and his good and pure family.

To know the phrase (Ya Murtah) that occurs in Duʿaʾ al-Jawshan al-Kabir, we consult the dictionaries of the language and find that it may be derived from the word (al-rawḥ), which occurs in the Holy Qurʾan, as in the words of the Exalted: “then ease, abundance, and a garden of bliss” (Qurʾan 56:89), and as in the words of Allah the Exalted: “and do not despair of Allah’s mercy. Indeed no one despairs of Allah’s mercy except the faithless lot.” (Qurʾan 12:87).

So it means the mercy with which Allah encompasses His creatures. That is why it has come in the books of language, regarding the meaning of the expression (irtāḥa Allāhu li-l-amr), that it means: He rescued him by His mercy from the affliction. So al-Murtah is an attribute of the One who rescues a person from his affliction; one says it, requesting that from Him, Almighty.

It may also be in the commonly understood sense of murtah, which is (rest), the opposite of exertion and fatigue.

To grasp an approximation of this meaning in order to understand the phrase (Ya Murtah) that occurs in the supplication, we must know that the words with which Allah describes Himself are not because Allah needs description, nor do they express a state that occurs to Him, glorified is He; for He—“Nothing is like Him” (Qurʾan 42:11)—is far above being of the same kind as His creatures.. So we should not project the names and attributes of Allah onto the attributes we know, with which we describe one another.. for they have a particularity connected with the Divine Essence.

Allah is not in need of describing Himself; rather, it is we who need the description, so that this description may be a gateway for us to knowing Allah as He truly should be known. He, the Exalted, has described His Essence with what we can comprehend, but not on account of an occurring state, as we said before. So we share with Him, the Exalted, (in terms of descriptive words) the end-point at which those expressions arrive, without the preliminaries and incidental origins that attach to them.

If al-murtah is meant as one who is not in fatigue or exertion: a human being is at rest after fatigue and effort, and a human being needs rest in order to continue performing after that.. But Allah—if we say that the attribute al-Murtah is in this sense—is the One at Ease, not after an exertion before it, nor with a fatigue after it.. His attribute in creating everything is that He does not tire and does not exert Himself: He creates the heavens, the earth and the mountains just as He creates the gnat, without toil or weariness..

As the Exalted said: “Certainly We created the heavens and the earth, and whatever is between them, in six days, and any fatigue did not touch Us.” (Qurʾan 50:38)

“And any fatigue did not touch Us” (wa mā massanā min lughūb) means: without tiredness and exhaustion.

He only says to a thing ‘Be,’ and it is.. So He needs no (son) nor partner to help Him in His creation, as the Exalted said: “It is not for Allah to take a son. Immaculate is He! When He decides on a matter, He just says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is.” (Qurʾan 19:35). So His command is between the kāf and the nūn (of kun, “Be”).. Thus Allah creates creation, and thus He will raise them on the Day of Resurrection.

Here the attribute (al-Murtah) in this special sense becomes manifest.

The poet Ruʾba said:

Then my Lord was moved (irtāḥa) and willed mercy for me, and a blessing which He completed, and it was completed. He meant

By it he meant: He looked upon me with a look of mercy. But some have counted this line among the coarseness of the Bedouins, because they did not grasp the meaning.

One of the poets mentioned the attribute al-Murtah when describing the beauty of the Imam of our time, Imam al-Mahdi, the Awaited (aj), saying:

Beauty wrote upon the page of his cheek: “Circumambulate, for this is the Kaʿba of al-Murtah”

The water of youth ripples upon his cheek, like a glass enclosing a lamp.

And Allah knows best, and He is the Grantor of success

Mahmoud Al-Mosawi