[0:00]That is why when Aisha asks the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, if Lailatul Qadar, the night of decree is to come, what should I ask Allah? He doesn't say say, oh Allah forgive me, conceal, cover my sins. He says, Allah oh Allah, you clean the sins. You love to erase the sins, format my hard drive, remove it of all the traces of sins so nobody knows. No effect is left and I am like a newborn baby yet again. Allah's magfirah. In Arabic is to cover something. When you get fresh food from the oven and you cover it. This is called you concealed it, you hid it, you covered it. When you take a dead body, you put it in the grave and then you put sand on top of it or you cover the grave, this is magfirah. You've covered it, you've concealed it, you've sealed it. This is magfirah. When Allah forgives our sins, he just conceals them, he hides them. We won't be affected by these sins on the day of judgment, we won't be asked about these sins, but if you go to the angel on your right and left shoulder, the record is still there. Hisham backbited Fulan. The record is still there. Allah may have forgiven me, but it's still there. The angels know it happened. It's in my record. On the day of judgment, if you want to check, it's still there. This is magfirah. But Allah has concealed it, he's hidden it, so there's no consequences on you, no punishment on you, he has forgiven you. The next level after that is. is to clean something such that there is no trace left behind. Like if I were to bring some baklava to this masjid and I were to give it to this brother here. Luqman, Luqman has a bite, he passes it, he passes it. When the plate comes back to me, will I know what was inside the plate? You guys will not even leave one crumb for me. You will do, you will clean no traces. Yes, some of you when you eat you do this to the plate. Nobody knows what was ever in the plate. This is to format, to clean such that there is no trace, no history, no record left behind. So the lower level of forgiveness is Al-Maghfirah. Allah forgives your sins, but the earth still knows you did it. The angel still know you did it. On the day of judgment it's still in your book, but also in your book, Allah forgave it, so you're not going to see any punishment. But is the greatest extent. Allah erases the sin. The angels forget that you did it. It is no longer in your book of deeds. Nobody knows except Allah that you did it, and you will never be faced with its consequences ever again. That is why when Aisha asks the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, If Lailatul Qadar, the night of decree is to come, what should I ask Allah? He doesn't say say, oh Allah forgive me, conceal, cover my sins. He says, Allah, oh Allah, you clean the sins. You love to erase the sins, format my hard drive, remove it of all the traces of sins, so nobody knows. No effect is left, and I am like a newborn baby yet again. This is. And so Allah, one of his names is Al-Ghaffar, the one who consistently constantly forgives and conceals the sins. And one of his names is Al-Afu. The one who not just forgives, not just he covers it up, but he cleans it so nobody ever knew it was there. Before you ask Allah for and, first you ask him for, because believers have to be ambitious. We have to ask Allah the maximum. We should never ask Allah just forgive like today's sins. No, Allah clean the whole plate for me. Then and then. Ibn Kathir he mentions, when we say to Allah, oh Allah, that means oh Allah, clean the sin, the effects of the sin between me and you. When we say that means, oh Allah, cover the sin from the eyes of other people. Don't let people know that I did this mistake. And then when you say, that means in the future, oh Allah, continue to have mercy on me despite my history, despite my mistakes. You are our closest loyal protector. One day we will come to this name.
[4:47]Now what we learn from these names of Allah. Is that Allah's mercy affects everyone. Muslim, non-Muslim, every human being, animal, plant, the wall, everything receives some portion of Allah's. But forgiveness, is that for everybody and for every deed? Are there deeds which Allah doesn't forgive? Allah doesn't forgive that you make anything equal to him. And is magfirah for everyone? Does Allah forgive everyone? Allahu Akbar.
[5:26]He says, Allah forgives everyone and he quotes the hadith, except the one who refuses Allah's forgiveness. Now, would anyone refuse that? The one who does not follow the way of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, forgiveness of Allah comes to those who seek it and those who ask for it. And so in the Quran, Allah talks about a third concept. Al-Istighfar, to seek Allah's forgiveness, to search for it. And he talks about another concept, very similar. At-Tawbah, at-Tawbah comes from the root word and which means to return. If I'm driving, I'm driving in this direction, and suddenly Google Maps tells me, you made a wrong turn, you have to take a U-turn. This U-turn in Arabic is called, to make a detour, to make a U-turn. You're going in one direction, but you returned back to the direction you were supposed to go in.
[6:33]This is Tawbah. And the first example of Tawbah in the Quran, is example of our father Adam Alayhi Salaam. Allah tells Adam, don't eat from this tree. Everything else is halal, just avoid this tree. But Shaitan, our enemy, his job is to continuously whisper to us and distract us, and to make this one tree look like the best thing on earth, the best thing since sliced bread. And so Adam Alayhi Salaam eventually falls into the mistake and he eats from the tree. And Adam Alayhi Salaam has a consequence. Allah sends him from our original home of Paradise. That home that came without a mortgage, without a high price, Allah gifted it to us, and he sent him to this earth, the place of tests and tribulations, and the place where we have to prove ourselves. Now, when Adam Alayhi Salaam comes down, the first thing is he realizes his mistake. Now he realizes his mistake, he doesn't know how to apologize. Nobody's ever apologized in the in the history of humanity just yet. The first apology. Someone has to teach Adam Alayhi Salaam how to apologize.
[7:51]Adam learned some words from Allah, and Allah accepted his repentance, his U-turn.
[8:04]Allah is. Who is? means Allah doesn't just always accept, if you come sincerely to Allah, he will always accept your apology. It doesn't just mean that. There's an additional meaning. The majority of linguists, the Arabic language scholars they said, means Allah inspires you to come back to him. You don't feel like it. You're drowning in your sins. In the nightclub, with a cigarette in one hand, in you're looking at things you shouldn't be looking at. Whatever it is that you're doing, you're drowning in it, you're immersed in it, you find no escape. One morning you wake up and there's some feeling in your heart that says, I can't continue to live this way. I have to change. Who inspired you? Where did that inspiration come from? And one of the most beauty, that's the beauty of Allah's mercy is he inspires us by putting fear in our hearts. Because if we think Allah is only mercy, all nice, all everything's happy, everything's perfect, we become complacent. We get too relaxed. That's why Allah, whenever he introduces a consequence, a punishment, he always mentions, there's also reward if you can escape this deed. In fact, when Allah mentions some of the worst deeds in the Quran, Allah says, those who don't worship another creator with Allah, shirk. And they don't murder, and they don't commit fornication, they don't have intimacy outside of marriage. These are major sins, in fact, the first is disbelief. If you do these things, Allah says, there's going to be big consequences in the afterlife. Your punishment will be multiplied on the Day of Judgment.
[9:56]And you will stay there forever.
[10:04]Forever. How does that feel? You feel that fear? You feel that consciousness of Allah? You feel that consequence in your mind? Now watch what Allah does. Except for those who make a U-turn and they return to Allah. Is that enough? Is it enough just to say, Allah, I'm sorry, I did zina, I murdered? Yes, it can be enough. But there are levels of repentance. There are levels of returning to Allah. And Allah's response, and Allah's mercy in your life, and Allah's forgiveness, and your happiness depends how much you did, how much effort you made to come back to Allah. Now, if you did the maximum, what's the maximum? Number one, you did Tawbah, you said, oh Allah, I'm sorry, I was wrong, I shouldn't have done this. Level one, you renewed your Eman, you revived your, refreshed your Eman. But then the most important thing, change your ways. It would have been enough for Allah to say, he did good deeds. Allah says, he repeats the idea of action. See, returning to Allah is not just about saying sorry. It's about changing. That is the maximum level of repentance and return to Allah is to change. Let us take an example, a real life example, about a person who really turned their life around. Omar ibn Khattab, the man you all know and love before Islam, he was known to be very friendly with the woman. He was known to be a man of rage and anger. He had a temper. He was known to be a fierce man. Okay. In fact, Omar ibn Khattab, this man that we adore and respect so much, one of the funniest stories about his life that he tells is he said one day I went out on a journey. And I forgot my idol at home, but I had some dates with me. So I molded the dates into the shape of the idol, and I prayed. Then later I got hungry and I ate it. He ate his idol. And he laughs at himself. Imagine this is what Omar ibn Khattab was, he was a man who would turn dates into a God and he would eat it afterwards when he got hungry. This is the level of intelligence Omar ibn Khattab used to have. Now let's fast forward 30 years to the end of his life. At the end of his life, in Sahih al-Bukhari, it's mentioned that two, a man came to Omar ibn Khattab to criticize and complain to him. To say to him, you are not just, you are an unfair ruler, and Allah is going to punish you. A man came to his court just to say this to him. And Omar ibn Khattab's face went red. And then someone reminded him. He said, ya, ya, you are the leader of the believers. This man who's come to insult you and abuse you, he's an ignorant person. And Allah says in the Quran, Be forgiving, and command to what is good, and ignore the people who are ignorant, turn away from them.
[13:25]Overlook their mistakes. This man is ignorant. Oh Omar, oh leader of the believers, don't do anything to him, let him go. Omar ibn Khattab begins to cry. Isn't he the powerful leader? Can't he get this man's head chopped off? What made him cry? The recitation of the words of Allah. How soft he became. How gentle he became, how just he became. This is the same Omar who ate his idol made out of dates. 20 years later, this is what Tawbah means, ultimately. Not just saying to Allah, Allah forgive me, Tawbah is to change. Tawbah is to transform. Uthman ibn Affan, the same person who used to worship idols. 15 years later, he reads the entire Quran in one rak'ah. This is what Tawbah means, because when you know Allah's mercy is limitless, when you look at your criminal record and you look at how many black points you have, and you think there's no hope for me, but when Allah says,
[14:31]His mercy is unlimited. When Allah says, My dear slaves who have made crimes against themselves. Don't despair, never lose hope in the mercy of Allah. Allah forgives every single sin, every single sin. And so, if we want more mercy of Allah in our life, then we have to show more effort in front of Allah. And that is why, we mentioned this last ayah from Suratul Furqan. Allah talks about people who do the most deadly sins, murder, fornication, shirk, but then Allah says, If they repent, and they believe, and they change their actions, they change their ways. doesn't just mean they do good deeds. is to fix something. When you go to your bike, and your bike is rusting, it's brown, and you go and you put some WD-40 and some Pepsi coke and you scrub it and you clean it. You fixed it, you've rectified it. This what Islahi means. means you fix yourself. It's not just about saying sorry to Allah, but changing your ways. You dropped that cigarette addiction, and you replace it with a miswak addiction. You dropped that pornography addiction, and you replace it with Siddiq al-Minshawi. You change, you replace, and when you do that, Allah promises you something he has never promised in the Quran. I told you about forgiveness, covering the sin, I told you about, erasing the sin completely from all records, there is something even greater than that. Even more than that.
[16:28]Those who repent, they return to Allah. They apologize to him. They refresh their Eman, and they change their ways. They change themselves. Allah is not just going to forgive them. He's not just going to clean their sins. He is going to exchange their sins for good deeds. Imagine somebody who murdered 1000 people, and they returned to Allah, and repent to him, and changed their ways, and Allah gives them the reward of giving life, reviving 1000 people. Imagine somebody who memorized all the music albums of today, and they came to Allah, and they repented, and they sought forgiveness, and they changed their ways, and Allah rewards them as though they memorized the whole Quran. He swaps your sins for good deeds. Imagine that. Imagine that. He doesn't just erase, he doesn't just forgive, he exchanges. Today the exchange rate for the pound is not very good. But Allah's exchange rate will never disappoint you. If you want Allah to replace your sins with good deeds, then come to him running, change your ways, change who you are, and Allah will always find room to forgive you. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, that Allah said to him, My slave, if your sins reached in quantity from the ground to the sky, But then you came to me sincerely, without doing any shirk with me, without making anyone equal to me, I would forgive whatever you did, and I would not care. Is there anything? Is there anyone more merciful, more forgiving, more accepting, and more tolerant of Allah? If we want to earn this mercy of Allah. I said one thing, Tawbah, to return to Allah, Eman, refresh your Eman, and then change your ways, and you will see something phenomenal in your life.
