Dua for parents

When. Whenever parents come to mind, and especially after they have died — when this is one of the few things still possible to do for them. Many attach it to the daily prayers so that it is not left to memory.

The words. It is Qur'an, al-Isra 17:24, and it follows immediately on the command to lower the wing of humility to one's parents. Warhamhuma asks for mercy, and then comes the clause that does the work: kama rabbayani saghira — "as they raised me when I was small".

Rabbayani is from the root r-b-b, the same root as Rabb, Lord. To raise a child is described with the vocabulary of lordship: nurturing, bringing something along by degrees to its completion. The parents did, at a human scale, something whose name belongs to Allah, and the verse asks Him to answer it in kind.

The order inside it. Ighfir li comes before wa liwalidayya — forgiveness for oneself first, then for them. It is not selfishness; a person asking for others while ignoring his own account has skipped a step.

Why smallness is mentioned. Saghira — when I was small — is the reason given, and it points at the years the child does not remember. What is being repaid is precisely the care that was never witnessed by the one who received it.

When they are alive. Nothing restricts this to the dead. Said while parents are living, it sits alongside the ordinary duties owed to them rather than substituting for any of them.