When waking up from sleep:
الْحَمْدُ للهِ الَّذِي أَحْيَانَا بَعْدَ مَا أَمَاتَنَا وَإِلَيْهِ النُّشُورُ
“All praise is to Allah, who gave us life after He gave us death, and to Him is our final return.”
When we sit and ponder over the blessings Allah ﷻ has showered upon us, we quickly realize the list is endless. Among these blessings is the blessing of awakening from sleep. It is said that sleep is the sister of death, and in this du’a, we show gratitude to Allah ﷻ for bringing us back to the world of life after being so close to death. Here, we are being taught to begin our day with the praise of Allah ﷻ. Any act that must be completed during the day should be commenced with the name of Allah ﷻ, and the act of commencing a brand new day is no exception. As mentioned in Hadith, the three burdening knots which a person awakens with will be untied by the following three actions: remembrance of Allah ﷻ, making of wudu’, and performing two quick raka’at of voluntary salah. Our first wakeful moment must be in Allah’s remembrance, ideally in the form of this du’a taken from the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ.
du’a, dhikr, sunnah
