Dua for increase in knowledge

When. Opening a book, sitting down to study, before a lecture, or on finishing one. Three words, so it fits into moments too short for anything longer.

The words. It is Qur'an — Ta-Ha 20:114 — and the shortest supplication in the chapter. Zidni is the imperative of ziyadah, increase: not "give me" but "add to me". The verb assumes there is already something there and asks for more on top of it, which quietly rules out the idea that a person ever arrives.

'Ilma is indefinite and carries no article — knowledge, not the knowledge. Nothing is specified, no subject named, no limit set.

Where it sits in the verse. The command in Ta-Ha comes immediately after an instruction not to hurry with the Qur'an before its revelation is completed. The one person who received revelation directly is told to wait, and then told to ask for more knowledge. Nobody in the tradition has had grounds to consider the request finished.

Why increase and not understanding. Other supplications ask for benefit from knowledge, or for protection from knowledge that does not benefit. This one asks only for more. It is the beginning of a set rather than the whole of it, and it is usually the first one a student is taught.

In practice. Students often say it before opening a book and again before an exam. Saying it does not stand in for the work; the tradition that transmits this verse is the same one that produced centuries of extremely hard study.