Muhammad ibn Harith al-Nawfali, the servant of Imam Muhammad al-Taqi (`a), has reported that when al-Ma'mun, the `Abbasid ruler, decided to give his daughter in marriage to Imam Muhammad ibn `Ali (`a), the Imam (`a) wrote to him this message:
Every wife must be given a dowry from the property of her husband. As for us, Almighty Allah has put off our properties to give them to us in the Hereafter just as He has given you your properties in advance in this worldly life. I thus decide to dower your daughter with “the means to the response to the petitions.”
A number of confidential prayers, my father has given me these supplications and said that he received them from his father Musa, who told that he had received them from his father Ja`far, who told that he had received them from his father Muhammad, who told that he had received them from his father `Ali, who told that he had received them from his father al-Husayn, who told that he had received them from his brother al-Hasan, who told that he had received them from his father `Ali ibn Abi-Talib, who told that he had received them from the Holy Prophet Muhammad, who told that he had received them from Archangel Gabriel who said, “Muhammad, the Almighty Lord conveys His greetings to you and says that He is carrying to You the keys to the treasures of this world and the Next World.
He thus advises you to use them as the means to the response to your petitions. Through these confidential prayers, you can attain your desires and succeed in winning your requests. Therefore, do not use them in this-worldly requests rather than the otherworldly requests; lest, you will lessen the value of your otherworldly prizes.
These means are ten supplicatory prayers by which you can knock on the doors of your desires and they will be opened before you, and you can ask for things, and you will be given access to them.”