Reliance upon Allah for provision

When. These are Qur'anic verses rather than a supplication, and people hold onto them at the point where the arithmetic does not work — the month that cannot be covered, the job that ended, the debt with no visible source of repayment. They are recited as a reminder, and a person may then ask in his own words.

The words. Yattaqi comes from the root w-q-y, to shield or guard. Taqwa is not fear in the sense of fright; it is placing a covering between yourself and harm, and the harm meant is what you do, not what happens to you. Then makhraj: a noun of place, 'a place of exit'. Not relief in general — a way out of the specific enclosure a person finds himself in. And min haythu la yahtasib, from hisab, counting and reckoning: from a direction he does not count. Not merely unexpected — unaccounted for, missing from the list he made of possible outcomes.

What the condition is attached to. The verses tie the exit and the provision to taqwa, not to reciting them. This is worth being exact about, because the two are often quietly swapped. Reading them steadies a person; the condition named in the text is how he behaves.

Where they are. The Qur'an, at-Talaq (65:2-3), placed in the middle of rulings about divorce and its settlements — that is, in the middle of a passage about people at their most financially and personally exposed.

A note. The verse names no timing. The exit is promised, the schedule is not.