Dua for righteous spouse and children

When. Said by the married and the unmarried alike — before marriage for what is hoped for, during it for what exists. It is Qur'an, al-Furqan 25:74, the closing description of the servants of the Most Merciful.

The words. Qurrata a'yun is an idiom, and translating it as "comfort of the eyes" preserves the image while losing the mechanism. The root q-r-r means to settle, to become still and cool. An eye that is qarir is one that has stopped searching — it has found what it was looking for and no longer moves. The request is for the restlessness to end, not for the family to be impressive.

The second half. Waj'alna lil-muttaqina imama — "make us a leader for the God-conscious". Imama is singular where the sentence is plural, which the grammarians discuss: a household is asked to become one thing, not a collection of individually pious people.

Note also what the ambition is. Not that we be counted among the righteous — that we be at their front. It is the boldest clause in the supplication and it comes after the domestic one, not before it.

Why spouse and offspring together. The two are named in one breath because they are one situation. A family is not built by acquiring good members separately.

A note for the unmarried. Nothing in the wording requires a person to already have either. The verse is a description of a way of asking, and it is said long before there is anyone to be asking about.