Mr. A. A. Khan of Jeddah mentions some prayers in which the supplicant asks God to grant him forgiveness, knowledge or strength. He wonders whether it is permissible to “give the Prophet the wasseelah” after that. I do not know what is meant by giving the Prophet the wasseelah. What I know is that the Prophet has urged us when we hear the call to prayer to repeat what the caller says, pray God afterward and request Him to give the Prophet the wasseelah on the Day of Judgment. He explains that it is a special status which is granted to only one of God’s servants. This is what we should do after the call to prayer is made and before we begin our obligatory prayers. If we do not do it, we omit a Sunnah.
Mr. Khan also asks about the practice of appealing to God through a saint, requesting that deceased saint to intercede with God in order to grant us our wishes. This is not permissible. For one thing, we do not know who was truly a saint, and who was a villain. Secondly, dead people do not hear us in order to understand what we are appealing to them to do. God says in the Qur’an: “You cannot make those who are in their graves hear.” Thirdly, a prayer addressed to God directly is likely to be answered either immediately or after sometime. A prayer addressed to a deceased human being will not be answered by God because it is not addressed to Him. It will not be answered by the person through whom it is addressed, because that person is dead, and dead people cannot do anything for themselves, let alone for others.
