If a person who is asking for forgiveness experiences a delay in the arrival of a child or the occurrence of rain, it is not appropriate for him to think negatively of his Lord, may He be Exalted. Rather he must reflect and think negatively of his own self, for perhaps he is praying for forgiveness without proper focus and humility, or is merely paying lip service to praying for forgiveness, and this is an obstacle to his prayer for forgiveness being answered. Or perhaps the one who is praying for forgiveness has some sins of which he is heedless, and has not repented from them.

1. Faith increases by doing acts of worship and righteous deeds, and it decreases by committing sins. So whoever wants to increase his faith, let him focus on obeying Allah and let him avoid disobeying Him. What will help him to do that is spending time with righteous people and keeping away from innovators and sinners. 2. The remedy for intrusive thoughts (Waswas) is to ignore them and turn away from them; to recite a great deal of Quran; to do great deal of righteous deeds; and to call upon Allah, may He be Glorified, and beseech Him to ward off the schemes of the Shaytan from you and to make you steadfast in adhering to the truth.

1- It is permissible for the supplicant to ask of his Lord by virtue of the Quran, because that comes under the heading of seeking to draw close to Allah by virtue of one of His attributes. 2- The most correct scholarly view is that it is prohibited to seek to draw close to Allah and ask of Him (Tawassul) by virtue of the Prophet. 3- Seeking to draw close to Allah by virtue of created beings comes under the heading of reprehensible innovation, and is objectionable according to what is commonly known among people and on the basis of the wording itself. 4- Seeking to draw close to Allah by virtue of the trumpet blast, and the progeny of Nuh, and the caliphate of As-Siddiq, and the courage of ‘Ali, and so on – is something that came about as a result of the supplicant’s attempt to be poetic and make things rhyme [in Arabic], without thinking about the meaning.

There is nothing wrong with you making Du`a for a Christian doctor by saying: May Allah bless you, may Allah honour you – intending thereby to ask Allah to bless her and honour her with Islam.