Du'a
A Du'a, or supplication, is largely an appeal to God on behalf of oneself or another. This appeal, or invocation may be one calling for blessings or evil. This personal prayer differs from the alternative liturgical prayer of salat. Muslims practice salat, a fixed vocal prayer, regularly for the five prayers of the day. In contrast, a du'a, or mental prayer, is a private, inward prayer often of meditation, fikr.
A du'a may address God in any circumstance to which one may be afflicted. Environmental conditions and how to pray, adab, have been suggested to Muslims praying intimately with God through Du'a. These suggested "rules" are intended to guarantee the efficacy of a du'a, enhancing the legal purity of the gesture.
Widely considered a request for one's own or a community's well being, a du'a serves as a direct spiritual connection with God. While a du'a may or may not be promptly or accurately answered, the reason always lies behind God's spiritual deliverance of prayer requests. The outcome that God suffices, will always produce a greater benefit to all, rather than to that of the individual. The interpretion of one's personal interaction with God through du'a presents several differences. A distinction is often made, however, between fixed predetermination, suspended predetermination and universal determinism. Belief in fixed pretermination suggests that a prayer cannot change God's Will, while He may grant prayers implored of Him. In contrast, suspended or conditional predetermination states that while God predetermines all creation's fate, the deity may grant prayers based upon a conditional decree. Lastly, the view of universal determinism claims that the granting of a prayer is a direct result of terrestrial dispositions in accordance with celestial causes, thus through the laws of the macrocosm.
The heartfelt attempt to rationalize du'a suggests the importance of supplication with God to the Islamic faith.
Read more about this topic: Du'a Kumayl