The Reality of Barakah

Hazrat Moulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi (rahmatullahi ‘alaih) once mentioned:

The meaning of barakah (divine blessings) is not as many people think it to be. Many people think that barakah is for a person to acquire what he wants through merely reciting some wazifa and without making the correct effort and resorting to the correct means, such as a person recites a wazifa for being blessed with children but does not wish to enter into nikaah. However, this is incorrect. The true meaning of barakah is for a person to be blessed with divine grace in the means that he has adopted. Therefore, one should adopt the correct means and thereafter ask Allah Ta’ala to place barakah in the means. For example, one wishes to be blessed with children. One should enter into nikaah and thereafter make dua that Allah Ta’ala places barakah in the nikaah and makes it a means of pious offspring. Through this du’aa, which is made after adopting the correct means and effort, one will find immense barakah in the nikaah and it will become a means of him acquiring pious children. (Malfoozaat Hakeemul Ummat 3/313)