بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Invoking, How It Works: The word invoke has other meanings than to pray to, americans for example invoke their 5th amendment rights…..In our time of science, the science behind our deen can be explained and the difference between right and wrong that our scholars understood long ago can be made crystal clear to the rest of us. Our universe runs on laws Allah placed in it, this includes the unseen parts of it, ghayb, there is one law in science that explains how distant things connect with each spiritually, it is called quantum entanglement and our body uses it all the time [the science behind it is better explained in the books we have written, found at my website, here we are just summing up].
The idea of Invoking something, meaning connecting to it spiritually is the foundation of our religion, because the first verse Allah revealed in the Quran was for the Prophet (saws) to Invoke Allah while he was reading the spiritual signs so Allah could empower Him to understand them.
Gabriel asked the prophet to Iqra, read, Iqra in the name of your Lord who createth. In the name of is an invocation that connects us spiritually with a specific quality of Allah, in this verse two qualities Rabb and Creator.
How we are connected is a matter of science because at some point the body has to be doing something to connect itself and another thing so our heart and mind perceive, there is no alternative to this, religion isn’t magic.
Allah in the Quran often invokes things other than Him so we connect ourself to them while we are reading the Quran;
“Nuun By the pen And by the (record) Which (they) write.” 68:1
The words “By the” are an invocation for our benefit, Allah does this in the form of an Oath we recite after Him, but the act is an invocation by us. Imam al Ghazali explained in His work Mishqat al Anwar, that the Quran is a sun for the mind, it directs the self and connects it spiritually with the things Allah created in the seen and unseen universe (ghayb) as we read it.
In this respect Imam Ali (ra) explained “the vision of the eye is limited, (but) the vision of the heart transcends all barriers of time and space”, so the act of invoking connects a person spiritually to what ever they invoke regardless of whether it is in the physical world or in ghayb (the unseen).
Allah does this many times for us in the Quran;
In one Surah alone he does this more than 10 times asking us to invoke these things we are reciting so we can learn from them;
“BY the sun and its radiant brightness, By the moon as it reflects the sun!, BY the day as it reveals the (sun to the) world, By the night as it veils it darkly!, BY the sky and its wondrous make, By the earth and all its expanse! BY the Soul and how it is formed in accordance with what it is meant to be, And inspired it with what is wrong for it and right for it. To a happy state shall indeed attain he who causes this [self] to grow in purity, and truly lost is he who buries it [in darkness].
Elsewhere in the Quran He asks us to invoke not just created objects but ideas and thoughts so we benefit from them, He often asks us to do this when He begins a verse with the words “Say”, in other words invoke this idea so you benefit from it;
“Say: Are those equal, those who know and those who do not know?” 39:9
“Say, Journey in the land, and behold how He originated creation,.” 29:20
Allah also uses the words “and remember” to ask us to invoke things;
“And remember Abraham and Isma’il raised the foundations of the House (with this prayer): Our Lord accept (this service) from us, for you are the All-Hearing, the All-knowing.” 2:127
The act of reading these verses invokes the things being mentioned so we connect to them spiritually, this is the understanding of the great scholars of Islam, this is the science behind how the Quran benefits man spiritually, if we didn’t connect with these things on a spiritual level then there can be no benefit (baraka) in the Quran, to this end Allah explains that the Quran was sent down for this very purpose;
“And We send down with the Qur’an that which is healing and mercy for the believers, but it does not increase the wrongdoers except in loss.”(17:82)
This verse tells us a number of things about how this works, the words send down means we are given things from the spiritual world when we recite the Quran, things that heal us spiritually and psychologically and are a mercy, meaning things that protect us from harm in life. The other thing it tells us is that when the wrong doers read the Quran it increases them in loss, this is because through the wrong they do they build themselves up in the world on the back of haram, but the Quran takes them in the opposite direction towards good, so they loose the evil spiritual strength they had as they recite it.
It’s considered a loss for them because they deliberately persist in Haram for the sake of being strong and when they see good they ignore it, so it doesn’t benefit them anything except the loss of their strength, power and influence.
This is the act of invoking in the Quran, but people can invoke anything to connect to it spiritually, it is a fundamental law in the universe that people can use for wrong or for good. For example people who practice sihr invoke evil things to increase the effectiveness of their sihr, if the act of invoking didn’t connect you spiritually to what is being invoked then sihr would not work, but Allah mentions it clearly in the Quran, the evil eye also works by connecting to people or things spiritually with a gaze that has a bad intention behind it.
Muslims understood this law in the universe and discovered ways to use it to benefit people and society. Invoking in this Naqshbandi dua (see video) means to connect spiritually with the souls of these Awliyah, the science behind it then brings it’s Baraka into your life. All souls are given their place in the Akhira right after death, the place is a Maqam (station or rank) of baraka Allah granted them in the universe, this is the same for all people, but the Maqam of the Prophets has the most Baraka attached to it, this is Allah’s gift to them. The prophet (saws) Allah gave him the Maqam of writing His (saws) name on the Arsh (throne), the Arsh is what supports the entire universe and Allows man to know Allah, so the soul of the prophet has this benefit with it when it is invoked in the Quran, so man can know Allah when they invoke his (saws) name, a tremendous rank.
This is the essence behind invoking the names of those near to Allah, whether they hear you or not is not relevant and is entirely up to Allah and His Angels who choose to convey your words. But the science behind invoking works regardless, just like gravity doesn’t discriminate about who and what it affects on earth.
Shaykh Rami Al Rifai
الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِين