The Whispered Prayer of the Thankful
My God, the uninterrupted flow of Your graciousness hast distracted me from thanking You!
The flood of Your bounty has rendered me incapable of counting Your praises!
The succession of Your kind acts has diverted me from mentioning You in laudation!
The continuous rush of Your benefits has thwarted me from spreading the news of Your gentle favours!
This is the station of him who confesses to the lavishness of favours,
meets them with shortcomings,
and witnesses to his own disregard and negligence.
You are the Clement, the Compassionate, the Good, the Generous,
who does not disappoint those who aim for Him,
nor cast out from His courtyard those who expect from Him!
In Your yard are put down the saddlebags of the hopeful
and in Your plain stand the hopes of the help-seekers!
So meet not our hopes by disappointing and disheartening
and clothe us not in the shirt of despair and despondency!
My God, my thanksgiving is small before Your great boons,
and my praise and news-spreading shrink beside Your generosity toward me!
Your favours have wrapped me in the robes of the lights of faith,
and the gentlenesses of Your goodness have let down over me delicate curtains of might!
Your kindnesses have collared me with collars not to be moved
and adorned me with neck-rings not to be broken!
Your boons are abundant - my tongue is too weak to count them!
Your favours are many - my understanding falls short of grasping them, not to speak of exhausting them!
So how can I achieve thanksgiving?
For my thanking You requires thanksgiving.
Whenever I say, 'To You belongs praise!',
it becomes thereby incumbent upon me to say, 'To You belongs praise'!
My God, as You have fed us through Your gentleness and nurtured us through Your benefaction,
so also complete for us lavish favours, repel from us detested acts of vengeance,
and of the shares of the two abodes, give us their most elevated and their greatest,
both the immediate and the deferred!
To You belongs praise for Your good trial
and the lavishness of Your favours,
a praise conforming to Your good pleasure
and attracting Your great goodness and magnanimity.
O All-mighty, O All-generous!
By Your mercy, O Most Merciful of the merciful!