Your Eminence, the most venerable Sayed Abu Hashim…
May Allah accept our deeds and yours by the blessing of this noble month.
What is the explanation of the meaning of the noble passage of the supplication: *And I ask You to honor me through the abasement of whomever You will of Your creation, and do not abase me through the honor of any of Your friends*.
It has been narrated in the noble al-Kafi of Thiqat al-Islam al-Kulayni, from Abu Basir, that he said:
Abu ʿAbd Allah (a) used to supplicate with this supplication in the month of Ramadan:
“O Allah, through You I seek a means [to You], and from You I seek my need. Whoever seeks a need from people—I do not seek my need except from You alone, You who have no partner. I ask You, by Your grace and Your good pleasure, to bless Muhammad and his Household, and to grant me in this year of mine a way to Your Sacred House—a pilgrimage that is righteous, accepted, pure and sincere for You, by which You delight my eye, raise my rank, and grant me that I lower my gaze, guard my private parts, and through it refrain from all that You have made forbidden, so that nothing is preferable to me than obedience to You and fear of You, acting upon what You love, and abandoning what You dislike and have forbidden. Make that [come] in ease, affluence and well-being, and inspire me to give thanks for what You have bestowed upon me. I ask You to make my death a killing in Your way, under the banner of Your Prophet, together with Your friends; and I ask You to kill through me Your enemies and the enemies of Your Messenger. *And I ask You to honor me through the abasement of whomever You will of Your creation, and do not abase me through the honor of any of Your friends.* O Allah, grant me a way along with the Messenger. Allah is sufficient for me; [it is] what Allah wills.”
What I submit to you, in the hope that your time will allow you to favor me with an answer, is the explanation of the meaning of the noble passage of the supplication: *And I ask You to honor me through the abasement of whomever You will of Your creation, and do not abase me through the honor of any of Your friends*.
It is to scholars such as you that seekers of knowledge and learning turn.
May Allah preserve you; we ask you for your prayers.
In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful
And blessings and peace be upon the Prophet Muhammad and his most noble family.
What is meant may be: that You make the abasement and humiliation of others a cause of my honor, according to how I treat them—so that I am among those who feel compassion for them, do not look down on them, and come to their aid.
And in the second passage: that You not make the honor of Your friends a cause of my abasement and my error, such that I do not value them or respect them; for a person's true metal is revealed in challenges, when facing different people. Perhaps this is what the author of al-Wafi meant in his comment on this hadith, where he said: “That He make him envied and not make him envious.”
We can also reflect on the expressions in another way and say:
Perhaps the first passage, namely “And I ask You to honor me through the abasement of whomever You will of Your creation,” means a request to Allah to be honored with the honor that makes a person the hand of Allah with which He strikes down the enemies.
That is: that You honor me with the abasing of whomever You will to abase. This means that he asks Allah Almighty to be one of His agents—indeed, one of His friends, at whose hands whatever He wills comes to pass.
This meaning is the most fitting for the context of the supplication, because before it he asks to be under the banner of His Prophet and with His friends.
As for the second passage, namely “and do not abase me through the honor of any of Your friends”
it is either connected in subject matter with what preceded it, so the meaning would be: do not leave off honoring me when any of Your friends is honored; that is, that I be the one possessing honor in confronting them, and not be abased by its being left off.
Or the meaning is contrastive, so the meaning would be: that You not make me abased when Your friends are honored.
This can take multiple forms and aspects.
Such as that You leave off my honor when Your friends are honored, so that I see the friends living in honor and dignity while I am abased and oppressed.
And such as: that the honor of Your friends not be a cause of my abasement or my disgrace; perhaps that would be in the context of enmity from others, or otherwise.
Numerous aspects can be conceived within this equation, among them what al-Wafi mentioned.
And Allah knows best the hidden aspects of matters.
Sayed Mahmoud Al-Mosawi