The Meaning of “My Lord, by Your Having Created Me and Proportioned My Nature” in Duʿaʾ ʿArafa
Q3: Our Sayed: A phrase in Duʿaʾ ʿArafa of Imam al-Husayn (a) made me pause, namely, “My Lord, by Your having created me and proportioned my nature.” Could you clarify for me the meaning of “created me and proportioned my nature”?
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In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful
The phrase comes in a context in which the supplicant puts forward Allah's blessings upon him, and by them asks Allah to send blessings upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad and to fulfill his needs…
Among His blessings, exalted is He, upon His creatures is that He created them and proportioned their nature.
Baraʾtani (“You created me”): that is, You brought me into being (khalaqtani), as in the words of Allah the Exalted: “No affliction visits the land or yourselves but it is in a Book before We bring it about—that is indeed easy for Allah” (Qurʾan 57:22).
And Allah is al-Bariʾ, that is, the Creator not after a form or model. The Exalted said: “He is Allah, the Creator, the Maker, and the Former. To Him belong the Best Names” (Qurʾan 59:24).
Fa-ʿadalta (“and You proportioned”): its meaning derives from iʿtidal (balance), which is taswiya (proportioning), since Allah created creation in a proportioned form, neither deficient nor excessive, and placed each of its organs in its appropriate place, as the Almighty said: “and then a clinging mass? Whereat He created and proportioned [him]” (Qurʾan 75:38).
Fitrati (“my nature”): in his words “and proportioned my nature,” that is, You made my nature (fiṭra) balanced and proportioned. The meaning of fiṭra is either:
1/ In the sense of the beginning of a thing, which here is the beginning of the human being's existence in time; he is proportioned in his makeup at the very outset and beginning of his creation, without defect, for He shaped his organs and made them harmonious with utmost precision.
2/ Or the meaning of fiṭra is religion, as the Exalted said: “So set your heart as a person of pure faith on this religion, the original nature endowed by Allah according to which He originated mankind” (Qurʾan 30:30). The meaning would then be beseeching [Him] by means of Allah the Exalted's creation of the human being and His bestowing upon him the upright, pure religion—“the upright religion, the creed of Abraham, a Hanif” (Qurʾan 6:161)—for Allah has favored the human being with the sound religion and chosen for him complete laws and true beliefs.
The second meaning is important and holds true, but we consider that the first meaning is apparently the one intended, because he mentioned the fiṭra and attributed it to the human being, whereas the second meaning comes attributed to Allah the Exalted, that is, “the fiṭra of Allah.” Moreover, the context of the supplication reinforces the first meaning, since the subject of the discourse is creation and its proportion; for it has come in the supplication: “My Lord, by Your having created me and proportioned my nature. My Lord, by Your having brought me into being and made my form beautiful.”
Mahmoud Al-Mosawi
www.mosawy.com