Abu Talha narrates that one day the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was in good spirits. Joy could be seen on his face. The Companions said: “O Messenger of Allah, today you are in good spirits and joy can be seen on your face.”
“Yes,” said the Prophet, “A visitor came from my Lord and said: ‘When a member of your nation bestows one prayer upon you, Allah records for that person ten good deeds, erases ten of his bad deeds, raises him ten degrees and bestows upon him a prayer like the prayer he bestowed.’” (Narrated by Ahmad and al-Nasa’i)
Nothing pleased the Companions more than to see the Prophet with joy on his face. They could not help remarking on this, hoping to know why this was the case. The Prophet ﷺ explained that an angel had come to him bearing good tidings. In some narrations this angel is named as Jibril, peace be upon him.
The angel’s message from his Lord relates to the reward given to someone who bestows one prayer upon the Prophet. The Prophet ﷺ was overjoyed at what had been gifted to his nation through this simple act. His joy was in what benefited his followers the most – an increase in their good deeds, an erasure of their bad deeds and the raising of their ranks – all of this multiplied tenfold! But what is even greater, is that Allah Himself bestows prayers upon such a person.
Allah’s Prayers Upon Us
Other hadiths tell us that if we bestow one prayer upon the Prophet, Allah responds by bestowing ten prayers upon us. But even if it is only one, this is more than enough since a prayer from Allah is something that cannot be measured or quantified. Imam Ibn Ata’illah al-Iskandari said that if all the good actions of the whole of creation from the time of Adam to the Day of Judgement were placed on one side of the scales and one prayer from Allah was placed on the other, the prayer from Allah would outweigh all those actions.
This is one of many hadiths that inform us of the benefits of bestowing prayers (salawat) upon the Prophet. When we take a few moments to do this, we recognise the huge debt that we owe our guide and acknowledge our inability to recompense him. We thus ask Allah to do this on our behalf and hope that it brings joy to our beloved Prophet ﷺ.