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LECTURE
Hassanain Rajabali U.S.A
LECTURE
Sheikh
Jehad Ismail Australia
Lectures
Sheikh Abbas Virjee’s Series
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Receiving the Holy Month of Ramadhan
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How can our sleep be worship.
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Light Vs Darkness.
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The Night of return to oneself.
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The Kingdoms of Prophet Sulayman (A.S)
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O you who believe! Turn (in repentance) to Allah with sincere
repentance; Perhaps your Lord will remove
evil from you…
(Qur'an, 66: 8)
The Prophet
of Allah (s) said: There are four signs of one who is repentant: 1) He
is sincere to God in his actions 2) He shuns falsehood 3) He is firmly
attached to truth and 4) He is eager to do good.
[Al-Harani, Tuhaf al-`Uqool,
p. 20]
Merits
of the Soul …
Repentance
(tawbah)
Imam Ja’far
al-Sadiq (a) said: “When a servant turns to God with sincere repentance
(tawbatun nasuh), God loves him and covers him (i.e. his sins)
in the world and the Hereafter.” I said, “And how does He cover him?”
The Imam (a) replied, “He makes the two angels (assigned to write his
deeds) forget that which they have written of his sins. Then He
inspires his limbs (saying), ‘Conceal his sins,’ and He inspires places
of the earth (saying), ‘Conceal the sins that he used to commit over
you.’ Then he meets God in such a manner that there is nothing to bear
witness against him regarding any sin.”
[Al‑Kulayni, al‑Kafi, kitab
al‑'iman wa al‑kufr, bab al‑
tawbah, hadith #1]
The
reality of tawbah
Tawbah means return to the soul's initial
spirituality after the light of its human nature (fitrah) and its
spirit has been covered by the darkness of sins and disobedience. The
human soul in its initial state has neither any spiritual virtues nor
any vices. It is capable of reaching any station, but in its original
state it is pure, sinless and has an intrinsic luminosity. The
perpetration of sins causes obscurity within the heart, and the light
of intrinsic nature is extinguished and converted into darkness.
However, before total darkness envelops the heart, if a person awakens
from the slumber of negligence and makes repentance, the soul gradually
returns from the darkness to the light of its original nature and
essential spirituality. This is mentioned in the famous hadith from
Imam Baqir (a):“One who repents from sin is like the one who has not
sinned..” [Al‑Kulayni, al‑Kafi, kitab
al‑'iman wa al‑kufr, bab al‑tawbah, hadith
#10]
The
essentials and conditions required for tawbah
Tawbah is not accepted from one who merely
declares, “I repent.” There are a number of conditions which must be fulfilled
before the acceptance of tawbah. These are mentioned below in
the following hadith:
q It is narrated that someone said: Astaghfirullah
(I seek God's forgiveness) before Imam ‘Ali (a). He said to him.
"May your mother mourn for you! Do you know what istighfar is?
Verily istighfar is a degree of the 'illiyyun (people of
high station) and it is a word that means six things. First is
remorse over the past. Second, the resolution not to return to
it ever. Third, to return to creatures their (formerly usurped)
rights so that you meet God Almighty in a state of purity in which no
one has any claim against you. Fourth, that you fulfil
every duty that you neglected in order to satisfy your obligation in
respect to it. Fifth, that you attend to the flesh of
your body that has grown on unlawful nourishment so that it melts away
as a result of grief and mourning and your skin adheres to your bones,
after which new flesh grows in its place. Sixth, that you
make your body taste the pain of obedience in the same way as it
earlier tasted the pleasure of sins. When you have done these
things then say Astaghfirullah! [Nahj
al‑Balagha, saying #
417]
This noble
tradition mentions two prerequisites for tawbah (remorse and
resolution), two important conditions for its acceptance (returning the
rights of creatures and of the Creator), and finally two points for the
perfection of repentance.
Tawbatun
nasuh (sincere
repentance)
According to
great researcher al‑Shaykh al‑Bahai (qs), there are several
meanings of tawbatun nasuh. A few of them are mentioned below:
q Tawbah that
'advises' the people, i.e. it invites them to simulate him (the
repenter) on account of the good effect produced in the repenter, or tawbah
that ‘counsels' the repenter to root out sins and never return to them
again.
q Tawbah that
is done purely for God's sake, similar to the pure honey
that is free from wax, and thus called `asalun nasuh. Sincerity
requires that the remorse should be on account of the ugliness of sins
and the displeasure of God, and not from fear of the hellfire.
q The word nasuh is also related to nasabah
which means tailoring, because tawbah sews together
the body of faith which is torn by sin, and because it joins the penitent
person to God's awliya' (friends) and His lovers in the same way
that separate pieces of cloth are joined together by tailoring.
q Yet another interpretation says that nasuh
is an attribute of the penitent and tawbatun nasuh is a tawbah
whose performer admonishes himself to take part in a perfect
repentance until the effects of sins are
totally purged from the heart. This task is only attained by causing
the soul to taste regret and grief and by clearing its darkness caused
by past sins with the light of virtuous actions.
The
sooner, the better…
Successful tawbah
is a difficult task. Indulging in sins, especially major and mortal
ones, cause a person to become totally forgetful of tawbah. If the
tree of sins growing in the orchard of the human heart reaches maturity
and its roots become strong, the results are calamitous, causing a
person to turn completely away from repentance. Even when the thought
of tawbah occasionally comes to his mind, he postpones it from
one day to another, and from one month to the next, telling himself,
"I will make sound repentance at the end of my life and in old
age." This is wishful thinking. Such a person cannot perform tawbah
after the roots of sinfulness have grown deep into his personality.
The best time for tawbah is youth when sins are fewer, the inner
darkness of the heart is incomplete and all the conditions of tawbah
are easier to fulfil. This God‑given opportunity should be
availed at all costs and one shouldn’t pay heed to satanic whisperings
to postpone tawbah. And therefore, one should do tawbah
as soon as possible after a sin is committed. An intelligent person who
realizes this fact, abstains from sins, and undoes wrong committed in
the past. His penitent heart filled with remorse, develops a firm
determination to quit sinful life. God helps him and if his tawbah
is sincere, he becomes the beloved of God as mentioned in the holy
verse: “Verily God loves the repentant” (2: 222)
Imam ‘Ali (a) said: “If you
want to win His blessings in the next world, today is the day of
preparation while tomorrow is the day of reward. The place to proceed
to is Paradise while the place of doom is Hell. Is there no one among
you to repent for his deeds before his death, compensate for wrongs he
has done, and do good before the calamity of retribution descends upon
him?” [Nahj
al-Balagha, sermon #33]
A
call to awaken the heart for tawbah
q O man! How sinful and foolish you are not to
know the worth of the bounties of your Provider. After having spent
years in disobedience and after prolonged disloyalty to such a
merciful Lord, Who has provided all the means of your comfort and ease
‑ without there being, na`udhu bi Allah, any imaginable
benefit to Him ‑ having violated His sanctities and taken
shamelessness and recalcitrance to their extreme, now that you are
remorseful, penitent and repentant, God Almighty has taken you as His
loved one. What an abundance of mercy and plenitude of bounty! O God!
We are incapable of thanking You for Your bounties. Our tongues are
unable to praise and extol You. All that we can do is to bow our heads
in shame and ask Your pardon for our shamelessness. We don’t deserve
Your mercy. Indeed, Your mercy is more abundant and Your bounties are
more inclusive than can be described.
q A wise man should endeavour to intensify the
form of contrition and grief in the heart so that God willing, it sets
aflame the fire of remorse. That is, through meditation about the
terrible consequences of sin, remorse becomes stronger in his heart,
thereby voluntarily kindling the holy fire, the fire about which Qur'an
says: The fire of God kindled (roaring) over the hearts, a vault
upon them, in outstretched columns (104:6-8). In his heart, burning
the fire of remorse will incinerate all his sins and burn away all its
rust and corrosion. He should know that were he not to kindle himself
this fire in this world and were he not to open upon himself the door
of this hell, he would inevitably pass from this world into the next
world to face the terribly cauterizing fire prepared for him there.
Thereupon the doors of Hell shall be opened and the doors of Paradise
closed to him. A wise person thus realises the grave consequences of
his sins.
q O God! Give us a chest lit with the fire of
remorse. Set our hearts aflame with the worldly fire and set it afire
by throwing into it the sparks of remorse. Remove the rust of our
hearts and take us from this world in a state of freedom from the
consequences of sins. Surely You are the Lord of bounties. [Adopted
from Al-Khumayni, Forty Hadith, chapter 17, ‘Tawbah’]
Conclusion:
q Imam Zain al-Abidin (a) said: “My God ! You
are He who has opened a door to Your pardon and named it 'repentance'
for You said, ‘Repent
to God with unswerving (sincere) repentance’ (66: 8).
What is the excuse for him who remains heedless of entering the door
after its opening?” [al-Sahifa al-Kamilah, The Whispered Prayer of the Repenters]
To find out more about authentic
Islam, visit:
http://al-islam.org/
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