Repentance and Forgiveness

Repentance and Forgiveness

Prophet Muhammad (Pbuh) used to seek repentance to Allah more than 70 times a day and would forgive all who wronged him! Why don't we as Muslims follow this?


By M. J. Mohamed

Man by nature is weak and forgetful, and often makes mistakes, does wrong things and deviates from the right path. The Almighty the most merciful and forgiving likes His people to seek pardon from him and those who are repenting consciously towards Allah would be forgiven and this is called Tauba. Tauba means repentance for a sin by making promise not to do the same evil again and to return to the correct path as instructed by the Almighty and his Holy Prophet Mohammed (Pbuh). The first man, Adam, himself deviated the instruction of the Almighty, committed wrong and there after repented much to seek forgiveness from the Almighty and thus introduced the rule of repentance for the sin he did in the past.

Repentance is a new beginning in the life of a person who intends to walk in the path of right. In Islam, sins are classified as those committed against the rights of God and those committed against the rights of human beings. When the divine rights are violated (e.g. by not offering compulsory prayers, by not performing a compulsory fast, by breaking a vow) it is necessary to fill the vacuum by the performance of some expiatory rite. When performing this rite, one must try to do what is possible. The Quran said: “Allah is the Most Merciful of those who have mercy.” On the contrary, when one has violated the rights of another human being, repairing the mis-behaviour has an absolute precedence, even over other acts of worship. If the wronged person seems not ready to forgive us or to accept compensation, we must go on striving to obtain his acceptance. Obtaining Allah’s forgiveness is, in a certain sense, easy, since the all-encompassing mercy is a permanent attribute of the divine essence, while human beings can in some cases be not so inclined to indulgence. In case of sincere repentance, the following results are obtained:

1. The mind forgets the recurrence of sins.

2. The mind becomes careful in committing future sins.

3. Such a man examines the previous omissions of compulsory duties from the dawn of intellect up to the day of repentance and tries to fulfil them.

Scholar Imam Ghazzali said there are four important principles in seeking repentance.

The first principle is the form of repentance, its limit and its knowledge. It is the duty of a man to repent after committing a sin. If it is sincere, it is accepted.

The second principle is to turn away from sins, to know the major and minor sins, to know the duties towards God and to men, to know means of progress and retrogression for virtues and vices and to know the causes of minor sins turning into major sins.

The third principle is to know the condition of Tauba and search the past sins.

The fourth principle is to know the causes of making Tauba.

Almighty Allah in the Holy Quran said: “.....be repentant to Almighty all together that you may get salvation.” [24:31]

Further, the Almighty said: “O ye believe! Turn unto Allah in sincere repentance! It may be that your Lord will remit from you your evil deeds and bring you into Gardens underneath which rivers flow, on the day when Allah will not abase the Prophet and those who believe with him. Their light will run before them and on their right hands: they will say: Our Lord! Perfect our light for us, and forgive us! Lo! Thou art Able to do all things.” [66:8]

He who returns from sin is like one who has got no sin. The Holy Prophet (Pbuh) said: “Think that a man went to a vast field with a camel loaded with food and fuel. He slept thereafter leaning his head. When he awoke, he did not find his camel there. Then he began to search for it running to and from and said after getting tired of hunger and sun: I will go to my former place to sleep, such a sleep that it may cause my death.”

“Then he placed his head upon his hands and slept there to meet with death. When he awoke, he found his camel standing before him with food and water. His joy then knew no bounds. Similarly God becomes more pleased with the repentance of a believer than his joy.”

Imam Hasan Basri said: “When Almighty accepted the penitence of Adam, the angles blessed him and Gabriel and Michael came to him and said: O Adam, God accepted your repentance and cooled your eyes.”

Adam said: “O Gabriel, what will be my rank if after acceptance of this repentance some questions are asked?” God then revealed to him: “O Adam there will be come sorrows and difficulties over your followers and repentance will be open to them. Whoever among them will repent, I will accept his repentance as I have accepted yours. Whoever seeks my forgiveness, I will not be miser in accepting his forgiveness as I am near and accept invocations. O Adam, when I shall resurrect the repentant men, they will smile and enjoy and their repentance will be accepted.”

Almighty’s forgiveness

There are many names of God given in the Quran. They are called Most Beautiful Names and they indicate many different and diverse attributes and qualities of God. Some of these names are related to His mercy and forgiveness.

Al Ghafoor: The Most Forgiving. This name occurs in the Quran more than 70 times. There are other names from the same root, such as Ghafir and Ghaffar.

Al ‘Afuw: This has another aspect of forgiveness. This name occurs in the Quran five times. Literally the word ‘Afw means “to release,” “to heal,” “to restore,” “to remit.”

The Holy Prophet used to seek repentance to Almighty every day 100 times (and in some saying it is mentioned more than 70 times twice a day).

“Oh people, turn to Allah in repentance and seek his forgiveness, for surely I make repentance one hundred times daily,” the Holy Prophet told his companions. “

Human forgiveness

Just as it is important to believe in God’s mercy and forgiveness, it is also necessary to base human relations on forgiveness. We cannot expect God’s forgiveness unless we also forgive those who do wrong to us.

Forgiving each other, even forgiving one’s enemies is one of the most important Islamic teachings.

In the Quran, God has described believers as “those who avoid major sins and acts of indecencies and when they are angry they forgive.” (al-Shura 42:37)

In one the sayings of the Prophet, it is reported that he said that Allah commanded him about nine things. One of them he mentioned was “that I forgive those who do wrong to me.”

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