On the day I posted about my daughter Sarah's illness, thousands of brothers and sisters prayed for her recovery.. Some may wonder: (She has passed away.. why were our prayers not answered?!) Here is the answer... and in it is the answer to our repeated question about the prayers that we say are not answered.
When I posted a picture of my daughter explaining my break from writing due to her treatment, thousands of brothers and sisters prayed for her recovery. They may now ask: Why did God not answer our supplication? This is a model of our constant questioning of our supplications that we think are not answered.
So I say to you: Be at ease, my brothers, for indeed your supplication has been answered, by God's permission, with something better than what you asked for. And God, my brothers, I believe that God has answered you in Sarah's positive psyche, her patience, her contentment, and her endurance.
She went through very difficult stages, with painful news of the recurrence of her illness time and time again, and that there was no hope in one of the stages except by amputating the leg completely; yet we saw her laughing a laugh of one who did not carry a burden, decorating her school notebooks, joining personality-building courses with determination, will, and positivity. What answer to your supplications is greater than this?
But her closeness to God increased with the intensification of her illness, and in her last days before entering the hospital, she insisted on performing the night prayer during Ramadan. I passed by her two days before entering the hospital, her body was weak, raising her affected leg beside her on the couch, her back leaning on the "tablet" reading the Quran and praying.
We opened her notebooks and papers after her death, and we saw in them: "I love you, O God, and I strive to please You, so help me in that, O Lord, guide me to Your straight path." And when she felt death approaching, she did not say, "Why did God not answer me?" But she asked me to recite to her verses about Paradise and its sweetness, and she said to me with her weak, faltering voice after I recited the verses: "Daddy, I have an idea... why don't you make a series about this topic?"
Positivity until the very last moment, what answer to the prayer is better than this? Then God willed that her story be a cause for the guidance of many, and I ask God that this be in the balance of her good deeds. What answer to the prayer is better than this?
When we remember, my brothers, that the focus is on the Hereafter, and that what is with God is better and more lasting, and that you submit to God's choice for you and prefer it to your choice for yourself; the meaning of the noble hadith becomes clear. The Messenger of God, peace be upon him, said: "There is no man who supplicates to God with a supplication but that he is answered, either that he is hastened for him in this world, or that it is kept for him in the Hereafter, or that it expiates from his sins according to what he supplicated, as long as he does not supplicate for sin or cutting of ties of kinship or hasten." They said: O Messenger of God, how does one hasten? He said: "He says, I called upon my Lord, but He did not answer me."
For God chooses how to answer your supplication, and His choice for you is better than your choice for yourself. So think the best of God and supplicate to Him, and trust in what He chooses for you from the forms of the answer. The Almighty said: {And your Lord said, "Call upon Me; I will respond to you."} And know that He is the most honorable Responsible and the best Giver, and all praise is due to God, the Lord of the worlds.