Prayer of Ephraim the Syrian: A Lenten Ramadan Reflection
Today is the third day of the blessed month of Ramadan, but it is also the first day of the Lenten season of fasting and prayer for Orthodox Christians.
Once again this year we share the same periods of collective re-focusing on the Spiritual Life — on fasting, prayer, prostrations, giving alms, and re-directing our whole lives to God.
For any Orthodox Christian — and especially for myself, as a former Orthodox monk —this prayer has a special spiritual significance. The Lenten season is marked with the daily repetition of the beloved prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. It is said multiple times daily in every church service and in all of the private prayers of the Orthodox, and it goes like this:
O Lord and Master of my life, a spirit of idleness, curiosity, ambition, and idle talking; give me not.
But a spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love, bestow upon me, Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord King: grant me to see mine own failings, and not to condemn others; for blessed art Thou unto the ages of ages. Amen.
Usually, after each line, a full prostration is made.
For the Orthodox Christian, nothing means truly entering into Lent as does the recitation of this prayer.
It struck me that there is nothing in this prayer of Ephraim the Syrian that is foreign or out of place for the Muslim. In fact, it fits perfectly into the spiritual understanding of Ramadan as a time for turning back to God and cleansing our souls from attachments to sin, lust, arrogance, hatred, and anything that separates us from God and from our brothers and sisters.
As such, I’ve written out a sort of Islamic adaptation and reflection on this prayer. I suppose it would sound something like this:
O Lord, Master of my life,
I seek refuge in You from the burdens of idleness, distraction, arrogance, and vain speech.
Do not let my heart be veiled by heedlessness, nor my tongue be occupied with what does not bring me closer to You.
O Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,
Bestow upon me a heart purified with sincerity, a soul adorned with patience, and a spirit clothed in humility and love.
Grant me the light of inner knowledge, that I may see my own faults and purify my soul,
And not waste my breath in the condemnation of others.
O Lord, the King over all kings,
Make my heart a vessel of Your remembrance, my hands instruments of service, and my tongue a bearer of truth.
For truly blessed are You, O Most High, the Eternal and the Compassionate,
The One whose mercy encompasses all things, unto the ages of ages.
Āmīn.
In Arabic, it would read:
أيّها الربّ سيّد حياتي
أَعُوْذُ بِکَ مِنَ أحْمال البطالة والفضول وحبّ الرئاسة والكلام البطّال.
لا تركها قلبي بي غفلة
ولا تركه أللساني تدخل على ما يقربنا إليك
يا الله يا أرحم الراحمين
هب لي قلب طاهري بي الصدق, بروح تَحل بالصّبر و ملبس بالاتّضاع والمحبّة.
هب لي ضوئي علم بنَفسي
أن أرى زلّاتي, لي بطَهِّر نَفسي
ولا انا ستَهلَك نَفَسي بي أدين اخوتي
يا مالك الملك
آمين
*[This translation was provided by an old friend of mine, Mohammed Abdurrahman — a former Syrian-Sephardic convert to Islam from Orthodox Christianity.]
Let us reflect upon these lines:
“O Lord, Master of my life,
I seek refuge in You from the burdens of idleness, distraction, arrogance, and vain speech.”
Ramadan is a sacred month in which the believer withdraws from all the distractions of the world in order to return to our heart’s true master: Allah, the Most High. In this sacred time, we fast not only from food and drink during the daylight hours, but we refrain from heedlessness (ghaflah), arrogance (kibr), and idle speech (laghw). The Qur’an reminds us:
“Successful indeed are the believers, those who humble themselves in prayer and turn away from idle talk.” (Qur’an 23:1–3)
True fasting is not merely abstaining from food, but from all that distances us from Allah. The distractions of the ego (nafs), the indulgences of the tongue, and the arrogance of judgment must also be restrained. As we would sing in the Paschal hymn in my Russian Orthodox monastery: “Let us cleanse our senses and we shall see God.” It is only in cleansing our egos — our nafs — and our senses shall we able to draw close to Allah.
“O Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,
Bestow upon me a heart purified with sincerity, a soul adorned with patience, and a spirit clothed in humility and love.”
Ramadan is a month of purification (tazkiyah). We may feel pangs of hunger during the day, but this hunger is not a deprivation. Rather, it is a refining fire that burns away attachment to all excess and false pride. In this sacred season, we ask for a heart purified with sincerity (ikhlāṣ), a soul tempered by patience (ṣabr), and a spirit illuminated by humility and love (tawāḍuʿ and ḥubb).
The Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said: “Fasting is a shield or protection from the fire and from committing sins.” (Sahih Bukhari)
Our fasting during Ramadan is not just a form of negation — a mere abstaining from material food and drink. Rather, it is a putting aside in order that we might be filled with the good thinks of Allah that are not material — the barakat (or grace/blessing)of directing our heart back to Him.
In this prayer, we ask that our fasting not only be external but internal — a fast of the heart from all that is impure.
“Grant me the light of inner knowledge, that I may see my own faults and purify my soul,
And not waste my breath in the condemnation of others.”
One of the worst things a believer can do is to ‘backbite’, or to speak ill of others. This is true at any time — but especially during the sacred month of Ramadan. All of the spiritual rewards of all of our struggle and fasting during this month can be wiped out merely by judging our brother and by backbiting.
The Prophet (ﷺ) taught us:
Blessed is he who is too busy looking at his own faults and correcting them, rather than wasting time searching for other people’s faults.
In the month of Ramadan, we not only direct our gaze back to Allah, but we look inwardly at ourselves, as well. We examine our sins, our faults, our shortcomings, our intentions. If we cannot see our own faults now, when will we? Judgment of others is incredibly easy — but seeing ourselves honestly as we truly are is another matter. This is the difficult part.
This prayer reminds us to redirect our gaze: not outward to criticize, but inward to refine.
“O Lord, the King over all kings,
Make my heart a vessel of Your remembrance, my hands instruments of service, and my tongue a bearer of truth.”
In Ramadan, we empty ourselves so that we may be filled with remembrance (dhikr). Mirroring the negation/affirmation of the shahada (“There is no god but God…”), fasting is an act of both negation and affirmation — we say “no” to the world so that we may say “yes” to Allah. But this does not mean that we retreat from the world in a monastic sense. In fact, Ramadan is a time of increased community with our brothers and sisters in the Muslim faith — in prayers, in fasting, in breaking the fast… and in service. Ramadan calls us to be in service (khidmah), to use the strength gained in worship to uplift others. Our Prophet (ﷺ) said:
“The best of people are those who bring the most benefit to others.”
As our hearts are softened by remembrance of Allah, our hands are made ready to serve.
In these sacred days of Ramadan, we must ask: Has our fasting purified our actions? Have our prayers deepened our love for Allah and His creation?
“For truly blessed are You, O Most High, the Eternal and the Compassionate,
The One whose mercy encompasses all things, unto the ages of ages. Āmīn.”
This prayer ends with surrender — a submission to Allah. In Ramadan, we do not rely on our own strength, our own righteousness, our own discipline. We throw ourselves into the ocean of Divine Mercy (Raḥmah), knowing that it is not our fasting that saves us, but Allah’s love that carries us through.
“Say: O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of Allah’s mercy. Truly, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, He is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful.” (Qur’an 39:53)
Āmīn.
Of course, the above reflection doesn’t discount or at all negate any of the wonderful prayers and duas during Ramadan that are in our own tradition. You can find some of these duas for Ramadan here. For me, however, the Prayer of Ephraim the Syrian has a special significance. And as both Orthodox Christians and Muslims are now fasting, praying, and making a strenuous and conscious effort of directing our hearts back to God during this month, I thought this would be a worth-while exercise and reflection.
O Lord, accept our fast, purify our hearts, and guide our steps back to You that we all may be One. For You, indeed, are All-Compassionate and All-Merciful.
"And thou wilt find the nearest of them in affection to those who believe (to be) those who say: Lo! We are Christians. That is because there are among them priests and monks, and because they are not proud.” (Quran 5:82)
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