Dua for sleep when restless

When. On a night when sleep will not come and the reason is fear rather than caffeine — after a threat, an argument, a piece of news. It is longer than the usual bedtime words, and its length is part of what it does: it gives a restless mind something to hold that takes a while to say.

The words. The opening is a chain of three, and in Arabic they rhyme and run in parallel: Lord of the seven heavens and what they have shaded, Lord of the earths and what they have carried, Lord of the devils and what they have led astray. Three verbs, one pattern, and the third breaks the peace of the first two. Everything the sky covers, everything the ground bears, and everything the misleaders have misled — all of it under one Lordship, named in one breath.

Jaran. The request is a single word and it is not the obvious one. Jar means neighbour. In the custom the word comes from, your jar is the one who takes you under his protection: to be someone's neighbour is to be defended by him, and abandoning a neighbour is a disgrace. So the request is not 'protect me' in the abstract — it is 'be my neighbour', asking for that relationship and its obligations.

Kullihim jami'a. 'All of them, altogether' — two words of totality where one would do. A frightened person does not want a list of exceptions.

A note. It sits alongside the short words said on lying down; it does not replace them.