Guidebook to God
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Ep: 30: Returning to Allah | Guidebook to God
As humans, we are all bound to sin, but the believer is one who repents after making a mistake. Learn about repentance in Islam and the different ways of returning to Allah and seeking forgiveness.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Tawbah and Istighfar Repentance and seeking forgiveness from Allah is the lifeline of the believer. It is the light in the darkness. It is the hope in the sadness. It is the removal of our sins. It is what brings blessing to our life. It increases our wealth, puts us in a position of power, and it is the way of Allah. It is the way of Allah. It is the way of Allah. It is the way of Allah. It increases our wealth, puts health in our bodies, makes whole and happy and healthy our relationships. It is what adds insight and intellect to our minds, makes firm our hearts, and gives us separation from those who are evil and seek wickedness for us and against us in this life. Tawbah means return, repentance, and a return to Allah. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says, Ya ayyuhal lazeena aamanu, O ye who believe, tuubu ila Allah, return to Allah, repent to Allah. Tawbatan nasuha, a repentance that is sincere unto Him Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Notice Allah never says, Ya ayyuhal aasoon, O ye sinners, O ye criminals, return and repent to Allah. It is only the believer who repents to Allah. And it is only the criminal who is incapable of asking Allah for forgiveness with the audacity of purpose of seeing themselves as beyond absolution and absolvement of their errors, that they are unblemished in their conduct. Tuubu ila Allah, return to Allah, the believers. Ayyuhal mu'minoon, alAAalakum tuflihoon, O believers, that you may be from those who are successful. Never lose hope in Allah's mercy. And as far as you have walked off the path of righteousness, as far as you have come off the straight path, and as many meanderings in life as you have had, and as distant as you have grown from Allah,
know it is just one step in return and you are with Allah. Waitha sa'alaka AAibadi AAanni fa inni qareeb. When they ask you about me, I'm near. The nearness you have to Allah, your physical proximity to Allah is in your sujood. Aqrabu ma yakoonu alAAabdu min rabbihi wa huwa saajid. The closest you are to Allah is when you are in your prostration to Allah. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala open our hearts to tawbah. Tawbah is built on three important steps. Al-iqla'u AAanni almaasiyah. It is that you suspend and stop, even if it's temporarily, but with the intent of permanence, you stop committing a sin and a mistake. Wannadamu AAala fiAAliha. That you have a regret for having committed in the first place. And number three, alAAazm alla yaAAooda ilayha abada. That you intend not to return to it again. Stop, regret, and intend not to do it again. If those three are together, seeking Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala's forgiveness is accepted for you by Allah. Your repentance is complete. Even if I was to go back and make the mistake again, yes. Even if you were to go back if your initial intent was not to, but eventually due to the circumstances of life, whether moments later or years later, Allah is al-ghafoorun raheem, al-tawwabun kareem. The one who accepts, wa man yuqbalu al-tawbatu AAan ibadih. He's the one who accepts the repentance of his servants. There's a fourth condition if your mistake involved another human being, and that is the reparation and repatriation, and giving back what you have taken, or making whole the mistake you have done by correcting the error of your statement, allowing other people to understand correctly what you may have misled them in,
and giving back what is owed and due. Istighfar on the other hand, usually synonymous with tawbah, is asking Allah for forgiveness, not for the things that you know you did wrong, but for the things that you were absent-minded in doing. And therefore tawbah is when I know I did something wrong, so I must ask Allah formally for that particular mistake. Istighfar is for something I did wrong, but I didn't know it had that gravity. I didn't pay as much attention to it. I didn't think it was as bad as I thought it was. It is for doing the mistakes that are more silent, as the Prophet ﷺ describes, more silent than the footsteps of a dark-colored ant in a moonless night in the corner of my room. Something that is unseen and unheard that I didn't imagine would have that great consequence. The Prophet ﷺ, he says for example in the hadith of Imam al-Bukhari, إِنَّ الرَّجُل لَيَتَكَلَّمُ بِالكَلِمَةِ لَا يُلْقِي لَهَا بَالَ فَتَخْوِي بِهِ فِي النَّارِ A person may speak one word absent-mindedly, not thinking it has that severity of consequence, but it will drag them down into the depth of hellfire on account of the sinfulness of it. Sometimes you've broken another person's heart, you've ridiculed with your pride another person, you've wronged another person in a material way, and you might have thought, oh, they'll get over it. But in their heart it was full of resentment and anguish and sadness that Allah will hold you accountable to unless you had istighfar. Nuh ﷺ said to his people, Noah said, وَيَقُومْ اِسْتَغْفِرُوا رَبَّكُمْ Look at the effect of istighfar. إِنَّ رَبَّكُمْ كَانَ غَفَّارًا He is the only one who will forgive, and it doesn't matter how many sins you make, he will forgive you. يُرْسِلِ السَّمَاءَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِدْرَارًا The drought that we're experiencing will be changed, and the heavens will rain down water upon us. وَيُمْدِدْكُمْ بِأَمْوَالٍ وَبَنِينًا وَيَجْعَلْ لَكُمْ جَنَّاتٍ وَانْهَارًا He will open the floodgates of His prosperity and happiness and contentment, that your rivers will flow,
you will be blessed with livestock and fruit and children. ما لكم لا ترجون لله What's wrong with you that you haven't intended to return back in pleasure and in pleasing Allah سبحانه وتعالى. May Allah سبحانه وتعالى make us people of tawbah and istighfar. Those two should always be together. And therefore you hear the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ الْعَظِيمَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْهِ I ask Allah the Almighty to grant me forgiveness, meaning to give me a time and an opportunity to earn good deeds to cover up my mistakes. That is the correct meaning of istighfar. Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in Surah Al-Furqan, إِلَّا مَنْ تَابَ وَآمَنَ وَعَمِنَ صَالِحًا Except those who repent, work righteous deeds as a consequence of their faith. Three things, tawbah, iman and good deeds. فَأُولَئِكَ يُبَدُّلُ اللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ حَسَنَاتٍ Allah will turn their evil deeds into good deeds, meaning they will be given a life to do good deeds that will cancel out their evil deeds. Other ulama, they said no, their good deeds themselves will transform, their sinful deeds themselves will transform into good deeds. May Allah bless us with both levels of His mercy and His forgiveness. Allahumma ameen. نَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ الْعَظِيمَ وَنَتُوبُ إِلَيْهِ Oh Allah, we ask you for your forgiveness, we turn to you in repentance. Oh Allah, open our hearts to you, make us from those who are cognizant of our mistakes and able to correct them before we return to you. اللهم ارزقنا قبل الموت توبة Oh Allah, give us before our death a tawbah and a repentance and istighfar to you. وصلِّ اللهم وسلِّم وزد وبرك على سيدنا وحبيبنا ونبينا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم Your brother Yahya Ibrahim. والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
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