Du‘ā for anxiety, distress and grief

This page gathers the du‘ās in the Sabīl library for a heavy heart: for worry, for a calamity, and for grief. Each one quoted here is shown as the library has it, with its Arabic, a transliteration, its meaning, and the source and grade the library gives it.

It gives no ruling, and it sets no time or number for any of these words. For anything about your own circumstances, ask a scholar.

The call of Yūnus, and refuge from anxiety and sorrow

The first card of the Du‘ā Compilation headed "Distress & grief" has two du‘ās. Its source line names the first as the call of Yūnus from the darkness and gives the verse, Qur’ān 21:87. The same line adds, citing at-Tirmidhī with the grade ṣaḥīḥ, that no Muslim supplicates with it for anything but that Allah answers him. The second du‘ā asks for refuge from eight things, anxiety and sorrow first among them; the library cites it to al-Bukhārī and grades it ṣaḥīḥ.

The verse the first du‘ā is taken from, in full:

Asking for all your affairs to be set right

The second card under the same heading has a single du‘ā, which the library cites to an-Nasā’ī in ‘Amal al-Yawm wal-Laylah and grades ḥasan. Beneath it the card carries a note of the library's own, for when grief takes a person's words away: it says that these du‘ās become the words, and that someone who has not memorised them can read them, since reading is also supplication.

At any calamity

The Pocket Companion's "Distress & anxiety" card begins with a du‘ā it labels "At any calamity". Its source line calls it the du‘ā of distress, cites al-Bukhārī and Muslim, and grades it ṣaḥīḥ.

The same card then gives the two du‘ās of the first card above a second time. The du‘ā of Yūnus is in the same Arabic, with its meaning in slightly different words. In the refuge du‘ā the Pocket Companion has the words for miserliness and cowardice the other way round from the Du‘ā Compilation, and it gives the meaning as a short list. The library cites both wordings to al-Bukhārī, and this page does not choose between them.

When the grief is for someone who has died

The Pocket Companion has a card headed "Grief & death", in four parts: what is said on hearing of a death, a du‘ā for the one who has died, words for consoling the bereaved, and the greeting at a grave.

The library's own checking has not yet settled questions about some of the texts on that card: their wording, how they are rendered, and the book one of them is cited to. So the card is not quoted here. To read it as the library has it, open the Pocket Companion's "Grief & death" card.

Where to go next

• Du‘ā by need has the rest of the Du‘ā Compilation, arranged by what you are asking for.
• The Du‘ā Compilation and the Pocket Companion can be printed as cards to keep with you.
• Janāzah is the library's title on what is done when a Muslim dies.