Time to Repent - Dr Ahsan Hanif

Time to Repent

The month of Ramadan is a month in which we perform many great acts of worship. We fast within this month, we pray within this month, we make du'a to Allah within this month, we give charity within the month of Ramadan and we recite the Quran.

Yet there is an act of worship — from these great acts of worship — that we should also be focusing on in the month of Ramadan, and especially with the last 10 nights of Ramadan fast approaching upon us. And that great act of worship is the act of worship of tawbah — seeking repentance from Allah, asking Allah for His forgiveness, requesting Allah for Him to shower His mercy upon us.

When we look in the Quran — another one of those great acts of worship in this month of Ramadan — we should be reciting the Quran, we should be memorizing the Quran, we should be understanding and contemplating, pondering over the meanings of the Quran. We find that Allah describes Himself with a number of names and attributes. As Allah says:

Allah has the most beautiful of names, so call upon Him using those names. We find that Allah describes Himself in the Quran using those beautiful names and those lofty attributes so that we — me and you — can come to know Him better. And through knowing those names and attributes of Allah, we can worship Him better. We can understand how we need to come closer to Him.

The Names of Allah and His Mercy

From the names of Allah that are most often mentioned within the Quran are the names concerning the rahmah of Allah — the mercy of Allah and His forgiveness — and how He accepts repentance from His slaves. One of the names of Allah that is mentioned the most in the Quran is Ar-Raheem — that Allah is the Most Merciful. But Allah within the Quran never mentions the name Ar-Raheem on its own. It is never mentioned in the Quran as a singular name. It is always coupled with another name of Allah. It is never mentioned alone.

And what Allah wants us to do through pondering over the Quran and contemplating over its beauty and its powerful meanings is to understand the correct concept of seeking the mercy of Allah. Because when it comes to the issue of tawbah and rahmah, there are two extremes. Those people who think that there is no mercy for them — that Allah will never forgive them because of what they've done and what they're continuing to do and what they're planning to do in the future — that there is no hope for them. And Allah rebukes these people in the Quran and He says:

Don't ever despair from the mercy of Allah.

And then you have the other extreme — those people who sin by day and by night, who disobey Allah and sin over and over again and have no fear of the punishment of Allah, because they think that Allah will definitely forgive them. That Allah's forgiveness is guaranteed for them, so they don't need to worry about repenting to Allah and seeking His forgiveness.

And as always, the balanced way — the way of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama'ah, the way of the people of Hadith, the way of the Prophet ﷺ and his companions — is the middle path between those two extremes. We hope and we ask and we beg for the mercy of Allah, yet at the same time we have that fear and we have that consciousness that Allah may punish us if He so wishes to do so.

Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem — The Vastness of Allah's Mercy

So Allah never mentions the name Ar-Raheem on its own in the Quran — that Allah is the Most Merciful — but He always couples it with the mention of another name so that you better understand how Allah's mercy works. From the names that is most often attached to the name of Ar-Raheem is Ar-Rahman — that Allah is the Most Gracious, the Most Beneficent. Ar-Rahman, Ar-Raheem.

More or less every single surah of the Quran — with the exception of Surah Tawbah — begins with the basmala. We say بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ. Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem is a verse within its own right in Surah Al-Fatiha, and it is mentioned numerous times within the Quran.

So why does Allah mention Ar-Rahman with Ar-Raheem? The scholars — rahimahumullah — say that the meaning of these two names when they come together and are coupled together is to show you the vast extent of the mercy of Allah. That Allah's mercy is all-encompassing. As the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 37, Hadith 6631)

Our Prophet said ﷺ that Allah divided His mercy into 100 parts. Just one of those parts Allah chose to descend upon the earth — between the people and between the jinn and between the animals and the insects. And it is because of that one portion of the mercy of Allah that the people show gentleness to one another, kindness to one another, mercy to one another — to the extent that even the animal will be merciful to its own child. And 99 parts of that mercy Allah kept for Himself on Yawm al-Qiyamah, so that He can use it towards His slaves on that day.

Allah's mercy is all-encompassing. Us — me and you — we commit so many sins in Ramadan, outside of Ramadan, from the moment we reach the age of puberty and maturity until today and until Allah decrees that we will die. We will have committed so many sins, and the vast majority of them we will have forgotten about. We won't be able to remember, recall, or recollect those sins. They will reach the peaks of the mountains and the depths of the oceans and we won't be able to recall them. But Allah promises in the Quran and He promises in the Sunnah — and Allah does not break His promises or His oaths — Allah guarantees and promises that those people who return to Him with sincerity, making tawbah, asking Allah for His forgiveness, He will remove from them all of those sins.

The Hadith Qudsi — The Limitless Forgiveness of Allah

The Prophet ﷺ related that Allah said in a Hadith Qudsi, as reported in the hadith of At-Tirmidhi:

(Jami' at-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3540)

Allah said: O son of Adam, O child of Adam — so long as you continue to make du'a to Allah and you continue to hope in the mercy of Allah, then Allah will forgive you for all of your sins, irrespective of how many they may be. O son of Adam, O child of Adam — if your sins were to reach the tips of the heavens, from the earth all the way to the heavens, and then you were to seek forgiveness from Allah, then Allah would forgive you. And O son of Adam, O child of Adam — if you were to come with the likes of the earth full of sins, and then you were to come to Me not associating anyone in worship with Me, not committing shirk, then I would bring you its like in forgiveness.

This is how wide and expansive the mercy of Allah is. And that's why Allah says in the Quran:

Say to My slaves who have oppressed themselves — and this verse applies to each and every single one of us, because we have all oppressed ourselves — O My slaves who have oppressed themselves, don't despair from the mercy of Allah, for indeed Allah forgives all sins. Indeed Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Hamad, rahimahullah ta'ala — one of the great scholars of the salaf — said that if on Yawm al-Qiyamah he had a choice between Allah being his judge — Him judging him for his sins — or his parents being his judge — his own father or his mother — then he would choose Allah and he would not choose his own parents, because Allah has more mercy towards him. He is more forgiving of him than even his own mother and father.

What a beautiful statement — that we need to ponder over. Allah is more merciful to you than your own parents, and there is no one in this dunya that will show you the sacrifice and the love and the protection and the mercy the way that your own mother and father will. But when it is compared to the mercy of Allah, then it is insignificant. It pales in comparison.

Al-Ghafoor Ar-Raheem — He Who Forgives Repeatedly

Allah in the Quran mentions that He is not only Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem but also — as mentioned in this verse — Al-Ghafoor Ar-Raheem — the One who is Oft-Forgiving, the One who forgives over and over again. And it's not just that He forgives over and over again, but He gives us the ability to recognize that we need to make tawbah, and then He gives us the ability to go and make the act of tawbah, and He gives us the ability to show remorse and regret for the sins that we have committed. That process in and of itself is from the greatest blessings that Allah can bestow upon you. The fact that you recognize that you're in need of Allah's mercy, that you need to repent for your sins, is in and of itself a great mercy of Allah.

And that is what Al-Ghafoor Ar-Raheem means. The Prophet said ﷺ that there will be a person who commits a sin. He commits a sin and then he regrets the sin that he committed. So he raises his hands towards Allah and he says:

O my Lord, I have committed a sin, so forgive me. So Allah responds and He says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 7507; Sahih Muslim, Book 50, Hadith 7)

Indeed My slave knows that he has a Lord. He recognizes that he has a Lord that will forgive his sins and accept his repentance. I have forgiven My servant.

The Prophet said ﷺ that that person will then continue for as long as Allah wishes, and then he will commit the sin again. And then again he will show remorse, and again he will make tawbah. And again Allah will say: My servant knows that he has a Lord that will accept his repentance and forgive his sin. So I have forgiven him.

And then the Prophet said ﷺ that that person will continue for as long as Allah wills, and then a third time he will commit the sin, and a third time he will go back to Allah seeking his repentance. And so Allah will say the same thing the third time — that My servant knows that he has a Lord that will forgive his sin and accept his repentance — and then Allah will say:

I will forgive My servant, and he may do whatsoever he pleases after this. Allah will continue to write for him forgiveness after he makes the tawbah the third time.

Over and over again we sin, and over and over again Allah — out of His mercy, out of His forgiveness — allows us to recognize the need for tawbah. So in the month of Ramadan, and outside of the month of Ramadan, during the night whilst we're praying qiyam al-layl and during the day whilst we're secluded alone with ourselves, we recognize the sins that we've committed. And so we return to Allah and we ask Allah for His forgiveness.

At-Tawwab — The One Who Loves to Accept Repentance

From the names that Allah couples with the name Ar-Raheem in the Quran is the name At-Tawwab — the One who often accepts repentance over and over again. And it doesn't just mean that He accepts repentance many a time, but the name At-Tawwab implies that Allah is pleased, happy, overjoyed when you come back and repent to Him. And that's why the Prophet said ﷺ that if you were a group of people who never sinned, then Allah would destroy all of you. He would remove you all and then He would bring another group of people who would sin and then they would recognize that they have sinned — so they would return to Allah in repentance so that Allah could forgive them.

Allah loves that you should repent to Him. Allah is happy that you should repent to Him. Allah is overjoyed when you come back and repent to Him, because it shows your humbleness. It shows your servitude. It shows your submissive nature to Allah — that you recognize that you need to seek tawbah.

And that's why the Prophet said ﷺ that indeed Allah is more happy and overjoyed when one of you makes tawbah than that man who was traveling in the middle of a barren desert land and he had with him his camel. Upon his camel, he had his food and drink. So he stopped at a place to rest and he slept, and when he woke up he realized that his camel had left him — it had run away — and so he had no food and no drink. So he went to look for his camel until he was about to die from thirst, with no more food and no more drink. So he goes back to the place where he lost his camel, and he lies down putting his head upon his arm, waiting for death to come to him — having lost all hope, nothing left to hope for. So he waits for death, and then he sleeps, and then he awakes — and as he awakes he sees standing above his head that same camel, with all of his food and all of his drink.

The Prophet said ﷺ: Allah is more happy at the tawbah of one of you than that person would be with finding his camel with his food and drink. The Prophet gave this example because tawbah is another lifeline. Just as this man was given another lifeline — just as he found another means to continue to live when he found that food and drink — tawbah is the lifeline of our souls and our hearts when we sin against Allah and then we come back to Allah and we seek His forgiveness and we seek His repentance. We are given another lifeline. We are given another chance.

And that's why this month of Ramadan, the scholars call it the month of tawbah — shahrul tawbah, shahrul maghfirah. It is the month of repentance, the month of seeking forgiveness from Allah.

Al-Barr — The Most Kind and Generous

From the names that Allah mentions and couples along with the name Ar-Raheem in the Quran is the name Al-Barr. And Al-Barr basically means that all goodness is attributed to Allah — that Allah is the Most Generous, that Allah is the Most Kind, that Allah is the Most Sublime, that Allah is the Most Merciful. Every type of goodness is attributed back to Allah. Allah is Al-Barr Ar-Raheem.

And the meaning of Al-Barr and Ar-Raheem in this context is that Allah — even when you sin — it would be from the right of Allah, if He so wanted, to immediately exact punishment from you for the sin that you just committed. But from the nature of Allah, from the goodness of Allah, from His mercy and from His kindness, from His generosity, is that He doesn't punish us immediately. He allows us time. He gives us time and allows us to recognize that we need to make tawbah.

And that's why a person may commit a sin but only make tawbah for that sin a year later, or five years later, or ten years later. And how many of us have been practicing Islam for 20 or 30 years later — only then do we recognize our shortcomings, we recognize the sins that we committed, and Allah guided us. This is what Al-Barr and Ar-Raheem means: that Allah allows you to continue, even when you're sinning, He gives you time to recognize that you need to repent and return to Allah.

And that's why the Prophet said ﷺ, and he gave us the example of that man from Bani Israel — from the Children of Israel — who killed 99 men. 99 men he murdered in cold blood, 99 individuals who were innocent, killed them one after the other after the other. But Allah never punished him. Allah gave him time to recognize and allowed him to see that he had committed sins, that he had disobeyed Allah, that he needed to return to Allah.

Until finally, after he kills 99 men, he goes to a monk and says: Is there any forgiveness for me? And the monk says: No. How can you possibly seek forgiveness after killing 99 men in cold blood? So he kills him and makes it a hundred. And then he goes to a scholar and he asks the same question: Is there any forgiveness for me after killing 100 people? And the scholar says: Who is it that can come between you and the forgiveness of Allah? Who can possibly come between you and the forgiveness of Allah?

So the man makes tawbah to Allah and he dies on the path that he takes — from the city that he was living in to a city that he wants to migrate to. He dies in the middle of the way on that journey. And Allah forgives him for all that he did. Allah allowed him to recognize — despite killing those 100 people — the need for tawbah.

And that's why Allah says in the Quran:

If Allah was to hold us to account for every single sin that we committed, then there would be no one remaining upon the face of the earth. If every time we committed a sin Allah punished us immediately, all of us would be destroyed. But Allah allows them to wait until the pre-appointed time. Allah gives you the chance to make tawbah.

And that's why the Prophet said ﷺ that the doors of tawbah will not be closed until your soul is about to leave your body, or until Allah commands the sun to rise from the west. The door of tawbah, my dear brothers and sisters, is open.

And if in the month of Ramadan — despite us fasting and praying and giving charity and reciting and contemplating over the Quran — if we're not going to make tawbah for our sins, then when are we going to make tawbah? If we don't recognize the need to seek Allah's forgiveness in the month of Ramadan, then when will we recognize this need? When will we make tawbah to Allah?

From the traps of Shaytan is that he always causes us to procrastinate, to delay. He says: Don't make tawbah until the last 10 nights come. Wait to make tawbah until Laylatul Qadr because it's worth a thousand months. Wait until you make Hajj. Wait until next year. Wait until you finish what you're doing and then make tawbah — just a one time, all at once. These are from the traps of Shaytan.

But what Allah instructs us to do in the Quran is that when we sin, when we commit a sin and we disobey Allah, we immediately return to Allah. We immediately hasten back to Allah and we make tawbah to Allah, that He forgives our sins.

Second Part of the Khutbah

Al-'Azeez Ar-Raheem — Balancing Hope with Fear

From the names that Allah mentions with the name Ar-Raheem is the name Al-'Azeez — that Allah is the Almighty, the All-Powerful, that Allah has ability over all things, He does as He pleases and no one can come and stand in front of Allah to argue with His decrees.

Allah within the Quran shows us that He is merciful and that He informs us that He is forgiving of all sins except for shirk, and that Allah is happy when we go back to Him and we make tawbah — but at the same time, to balance those scales, He is Al-'Azeez, the Almighty, the All-Powerful. He is Shadeed al-'Iqab — the One whose punishment is severe — and He is Saree' al-Hisab — swift in His accounting and quick to hold the people to account for what they have done.

And this balances for us the way that we make tawbah to Allah. It shows us that we can't delay our tawbah, but at the same time we need to fear the punishment of Allah.

The Prophet said ﷺ, mentioning the story of a man who came before us — a man who committed many sins and oppressed himself in a grave way. When that man came to the time of his death, he gathered his children and he said: When I die, take my body and cremate it, and then take my ashes and wait for a day in which the wind is strong and scatter my ashes into the wind.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3478; Sahih Muslim, Book 50, Hadith 27)

For by Allah, if Allah takes me and gathers me together, then He will punish me in a way that He will not punish anyone else from His creation. This is what he said. And so his children fulfilled his wasiyyah — they did what he wanted them to do. So when he died they took his body, cremated it, waited for a day with a strong wind, and scattered his ashes into the wind.

And so Allah ordered those ashes to come back together — for Allah is Al-'Azeez and Al-Qadir. Allah has the ability and the power to gather those scattered ashes. He brought that person back to life, resurrected him, and said:

What made you do what you did? What caused you to say what you did? And so the man replied:

It is only Your fear — that if You brought me together You would punish me in a way that no one else would ever be punished in a similar way. So the Prophet said ﷺ:

Then Allah forgave him for all of his sins. This is the rahmah of Allah — but when it is coupled with that fear of Allah's punishment, then it comes to life. It makes you hasten towards the forgiveness of Allah. It makes you use your time wisely. It allows you to realize that Allah's mercy is something that shouldn't be taken lightly — it's not just something you go and take because it's easy and it's there for the taking. But it is something serious, something which we need to take seriously.

Knowing that Allah is Al-'Azeez and Ar-Raheem and Ar-Rahman and At-Tawwab and Al-Ghafoor and Al-Barr — it causes you to cry for your sins. It makes you realize all of the time that you've wasted when it comes to the tawbah that you've neglected.

Conclusion — Don't Waste Another Moment

So my dear brothers and sisters in Islam — on this blessed day of Jumu'ah, in this blessed month of Ramadan — the message from this minbar and in this khutbah is that none of us have any time to waste when it comes to the issue of tawbah. Every single day we should be making tawbah, as the Prophet ﷺ would seek forgiveness from Allah seventy times in a single sitting or a hundred times in a day. Every single day we should be seeking forgiveness from Allah. We don't have time to waste. And especially in the month of Ramadan — this is the time when we need to make tawbah. This is the time when we need to turn over a new leaf and start a new page.

Ask Allah on this blessed day of Friday in this blessed month of Ramadan that Allah showers His mercy upon us and that Allah forgives us for our sins — the smallest of those sins and the biggest of those sins, those sins that we have kept hidden and those sins which have become apparent from us. That Allah forgives us and He forgives our parents, our spouses, our children, our siblings, our families, our relatives, our teachers and all of the Muslims.

That Allah on this blessed day of Ramadan makes easy for the Muslims their situation wherever they may be in the world — in places like Syria, in places like Palestine, and Afghanistan, and all across the world. That Allah forgives us in this month of Ramadan and that He writes and decrees for us salvation from the Fire. And that Allah frees us, and our parents, and our families, and all of our families and friends and all of the Muslims from the Fire of Hell.