Hasbunallahu wa ni'mal wakil

When. When facing something larger than your means — a threat, a hostile situation, a matter whose outcome is out of your hands. It is a Qur'anic sentence rather than a supplication in form: it makes no request at all.

The words. Ḥasbunā — "He is our sufficiency". The root ح-س-ب is the root of reckoning and counting, and ḥasb is what the account comes to: enough, the amount that settles it. Not "He helps us", but "He is the sum of what we need".

Wakīl is the one to whom an affair is entrusted to handle on your behalf — an agent with full authority, not an advisor. Saying niʿma al-wakīl, "and how excellent a Wakil", is a verdict on the arrangement after it has been made, not a hope about it.

Where it comes from. The Qur'an gives it as the words of a people told that an army had gathered against them, and told it in order to frighten them — Al Imran 3:173. The sentence is their answer to the news. That setting is why it belongs to fear rather than to want: it is what is said when the report is true and the odds are real.

Common confusion. Ḥasbunallāh (we) and ḥasbiyallāh (I) are the same sentence in different number, and both are used. A separate seven-fold ḥasbiyallāhu lā ilāha illā huwa circulates widely with a promise attached; the promise is not something this page asserts.