Ramadan 2025 | The Power of Prophetic Prayers | Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed | 03/22

This is one of the istighfar we need to do for being inconsistent. Because we can gain so much if we just do things, even if small amounts consistently. But if we do a lot, and we do it inconsistently, it just simply wears off. You won't see the effect even 10 years later. This is for me and for all of us. Whatever we do, do something, but do it consistently.

The Black Spot of Sin and the Power of Istighfar

So we're writing a list of all the evil effects of sins. And one of them you can add to that list is the fact that there is a black spot that appears every single time we commit that mistake. Alhamdulillah, through the barakah of istighfar, that black spot, that black dot, moves away.

In the Prophet's ﷺ next hadith on istighfar, he says:

All of the children of Adam make mistakes, and the best of those who make mistakes are those who are constantly turning back in repentance. (Sunan al-Tirmidhī, Hadith 2499; Sunan Ibn Mājah, Hadith 4251)

So the actual goal is to avoid all sin. But we also realize that despite our best efforts, there will be failures. It is our handling of our failures that is so important.

This is such a beautiful point. Everyone must sin and everyone will sin — that's just part of us being human. So this hadith gives a lot of hope. It's not about, "Oh, I sinned." It's about what did you do after that? What happened after that mistake? A person may fall asleep through salah. A person may accidentally make a mistake. But that's not the end of the world. What happens after that is the main question. It is our handling of our failures that is so important.

If we think nothing of our sin — or worse, even insist on defending our sins — we are in a terrible state. Because insisting on minor sins elevates them to major ones. Remember that. Insisting — meaning to have istiqāmah on minor sins — will make that minor sin into a major sin. The best people are those who are always vigilant about their potential to commit sins and are ever turning to Allah in repentance to clean them from their record. Repentance and seeking forgiveness are for everyone. We need them on an ongoing basis.

People sometimes stop at كُلُّ بَنِي آدَمَ خَطَّاءٌ — that every single son of Adam is a sinner. We're not supposed to stop there. We have to complete the hadith and say: the best of sinners are those who repent.

Speaking the Truth in Difficult Times

In a time when we speak the truth, people don't like it. Anytime you tell someone, "This is some good advice I'm giving you," people get upset. They always want to hear things that make them feel good about themselves. That is the environment we live in right now — don't say anything to anyone that might be offensive. No matter how sincere you are, if you're trying to say something for their benefit, people don't want to hear it. What they want to hear is: "You're excellent, you're great, A for effort, and you don't have to worry about anything else."

This misplacement is a very dangerous thing. I give the example, for my own self and for my audience, of the Prophet ﷺ visiting our home. What an honor. If someone were to say, "We have Rasulullah ﷺ at home for iftar" — now think about that scenario, where you are obviously probably preparing a month in advance. Everything is being washed down, cleansed, this and that. And the day arrives that the Prophet ﷺ enters, he's arriving at our home — just a hypothetical scenario.

And now the question is: you don't need to just polish and clean and make the place smell fragrant — which is important. The question that should come to me and to you is: when he enters my home, what is he going to see? Is he going to see things that are Islamically acceptable, or things that are Islamically unacceptable? First of all — the car itself, or the house itself. What is the background of getting that house? Was there haram involved in getting that home? You would never be able to invite the Prophet ﷺ to your home thinking, "SubhanAllah, I'm going to serve haram food." Similarly, it's not just haram food that's problematic — it is haram income. It's a house that's been bought through haram ways. When you enter the home, what is playing in the background? What's adorning the walls? What's the culture at home? Is it a sunnah culture or is it a haram culture?

When a person starts going through this meditation — this murāqabah — of the Prophet ﷺ visiting our home, the purpose of it is to highlight within our own lives: what are the things I need to change? When someone says, "If your spouse passed away right now, what would be the next step?" If you tell a child, "You should love your parents, care for your parents — imagine your mom dies today, imagine your father dies today — what would happen?" What's the purpose of that? It's to figure out: where are my holes in my relationships? What are the things that I need to work on? Because the day will come when that will be the reality, and I don't want to be surprised. So I want to make sure everything is prepared — what they call a contingency plan, a backup plan, an emergency plan.

Some emergencies may never happen — hopefully tornadoes and hurricanes in your area, a house fire — hopefully you don't have to suffer these things. But death is something you cannot avoid. So similarly, this is a spiritual exercise. What's the exercise? Thinking of the Prophet ﷺ coming. And I find it to be very beneficial to just think and say, "Okay, what are the things that are happening in my home that I need to change? That if the Prophet ﷺ were to be there, it would be unacceptable."

I know one marriage therapist who gives an example. He says, "Okay, I spent an hour with both of you, now you're going home. When you wonder, should I say this to my spouse or not? Should I give this knee-jerk response or not? Just picture the Prophet ﷺ as though he is sitting in your family room with your spouse. Would you utter those words? Ask yourself that question." That's another way of helping yourself.

I heard a very popular person addressing a crowd and saying, "We should not do this, because this is emotionally blackmailing people. This is making people feel bad about themselves." And that, in my opinion, is really hurting the ummah. You cannot uplift people and change people until they realize where their mistakes are. Imagine you're telling a doctor: "If you tell your patient that he needs to cut down on these foods, and he needs to start doing this type of exercise, and he needs to follow this type of sleep schedule — you are actually challenging the status quo and hurting the feelings of the patient." What is he going to say? He's going to say, "Pay me for my office visit and get out of here. Don't come back again. What am I supposed to do? I'm saying it for your own benefit."

So it's so important for us — as moms and dads, as teachers, as mentors, and just as average Muslims today — that we do not lose our honesty, our genuineness, and our willingness to address issues that become apparent in front of us. And instead of just saying "everything is fine" when something is not fine, call a spade a spade and say, "This is not fine, change must happen here."

Salawat Upon the Prophet ﷺ

This hadith is mentioning the fact that everyone is going to sin — this is part of human nature. Allah is so pure, Allah is so great, Allah is so amazing. It is humanly impossible — except for the Prophets — to lead a life in which we have fulfilled every right of Allah. We just can't do it.

When Allah says:

Indeed Allah and His angels send salutations upon the Prophet ﷺ. O believers, send your blessings and salutations upon the Prophet ﷺ.

When was the last time any of us did that? When was the last time you sent salutations upon the Prophet ﷺ? Today? I don't think any of us did — not from the morning, and I don't think we've done it since the beginning of Ramadan.

Because when we say اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ عَلَى مُحَمَّدٍ — "O Allah, please send down salutations" — who are we to send salutations upon the Prophet ﷺ? What am I doing with the Prophet ﷺ, sending blessings upon him? I can't. Allah asked me to do it. Allah says: I do it and my angels do it — I want you to join me. Ya Allah, something You do — how am I supposed to join You in that? We are incapable of sending salutations upon the Prophet ﷺ. That is why we ask Allah to do so. We are sending salawat — but no, we are asking Allah to send salawat. We do that in every salah.

So if this is the distance between you and I and the Rasul ﷺ — that we cannot even send salutations upon him — how can we say that I can lead a life wherein I fulfill all the rights of Allah? Not possible. Because Allah is so perfect, so great, and us as humans are the complete opposite — so weak — that we cannot do justice to that. So the issue is not about making a mistake; the issue is what happens after we make the mistake.

The Qualities of the People of Taqwa — Surah Āl-'Imrān

One beautiful ayah — Allah says in the fourth juz:

Compete with one another — سَارِعُوا means you race with one another. Race with one another إِلَىٰ مَغْفِرَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ — to gain the forgiveness from your Lord. وَجَنَّةً — and to gain paradise. Allah says: I want you to compete with one another in getting My forgiveness and My paradise.

How big is this paradise? عَرْضُهَا السَّمَاوَاتُ وَالْأَرْضُ — the width of it is the width of the heavens and the earth. Usually you'd say the length of something to express how long it is. Allah is not even talking about the length of Jannah. Allah speaks about the width of it. The width of it is so big — if the width is the distance between the heavens and the earth, imagine how long the length is.

أُعِدَّتْ لِلْمُتَّقِينَ — this Jannah is already ready. It's already been prepared. Past tense — already been prepared. Who has it been prepared for? The muttaqīn — for those who have taqwa. That's amazing. Ya Allah, I want taqwa. We all want taqwa. So what should we do?

Quality #1 — Spending in All Circumstances

الَّذِينَ يُنفِقُونَ فِي السَّرَّاءِ — those people who spend in times of ease and comfort. وَالضَّرَّاءِ — and in the times of difficulty. That's the number one quality of the people of taqwa. What do they do? They spend. In what situation? All situations — ease and comfort as well as difficulty. What do they spend? Everything — life, wealth, talents, time, whatever it is.

It's not only that we give time to the deen when we have a lot of free time — on spring break, summer break, or a day off. No, we give time in our busiest days. When we're super busy, we're also taking time out for the deen. That's where the real stuff comes in. It's not that we're only giving money when we have a lot of surplus. When things are tight, we're still also making sure that our sadaqa continues to go. It's not that we give our intelligence and our talents only when we have no other place to give it — retired, khalas, done, nowhere to go. No — at the peak of your career, while you're using your talents and making money, you're also using that talent for the deen as well.

A lot of times people come towards the deen when they've used their entire adolescence, entire youthfulness, entire middle age in something of dunya. And when, subhanAllah, everything in the world has given up on them — because they're no longer worthwhile — they say, "Let me come to the deen." Alhamdulillah, they came to the deen now. MashaAllah, alhamdulillah. That's great. And we hope that on this beautiful note, Allah takes them away in a state of serving the deen. But what I'm trying to say is: the real deal is that we start spending our time, our effort, our money, our resources, our intellect at the peak of our talent. When we can do everything in the dunya but we're still coming to the deen — that's the number one quality of the people of taqwa.

Quality #2 — Controlling the Anger

وَالْكَاظِمِينَ الْغَيْظَ — those who control their anger. كَظَمَ means to drink, to drink something down. The Prophet ﷺ speaks about this being one of the best things you can drink and gulp — not a bubble tea, not a smoothie, not the amazing chai that every night we're having here. Alhamdulillah. The best thing you can swallow is your anger. How profound. After spending, the next thing the people of taqwa do is they swallow their anger.

Quality #3 — Forgiving People

وَالْعَافِينَ عَنِ النَّاسِ — they forgive people. That's the third quality of taqwa. وَاللَّهُ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنِينَ — Allah loves those who do ihsan. Those who don't just do the basics. They go above and beyond the basics, and whatever they do, they do it perfectly — as humanly perfect as possible. Whatever you've got to do, you have to have ihsan — including vacuuming the carpets.

A brother asked me a genuine question. He said, "I'm in sunnah i'tikaf. Am I allowed to do khidmah? Or should khidmah be done by people who are not in i'tikaf?" And I said: khidmah is very much connected with your i'tikaf. We all should take responsibility of looking after our own spots, cleaning up after ourselves. There are no maids to serve us — we have to serve ourselves. And this is definitely part of i'tikaf. Yes, to leave the masjid and go clean the lawn outside — in a proper i'tikaf you don't need to do that. But right now, all of us who are able-bodied — mashaAllah, there are enough young people here — we do not need the senior citizens to participate. Their duas will go a long way. We ask the seniors to make dua for the youngsters. But there's more than enough young men here, alhamdulillah, to take responsibility of doing khidmah every single day.

This is something a person does ihsan in. And Allah says: I love those who do ihsan.

Quality #4 — Repenting After Falling into Sin

This is the reason why I went on to this discussion. The next ayah says:

وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا فَعَلُوا فَاحِشَةً — fāhisha is not any normal sin. Fāhisha is a sin related to zina — smaller form, larger form, whatever, some form. Lewdness. Allah specifically mentions this: "And those people who commit an act of lewdness." And by the way, today it is nearly impossible to protect yourself from fāhisha. Because everywhere we go we have screens. Everywhere you have screens, and every screen has something a person should not be looking at.

One brother — he got invited to iftar. I said, "You're not going?" He said, "Yeah, I don't want to commit the zina of the eye." It's in Ramadan, the last 10 nights. And he's being honest. So at iftar, a person is going and he's committing the zina of the eye. Just think about that. This is how hard it's become. You go to a masjid — most masjids have a certain environment. And subhanAllah, a person is walking in to do an ibadah, but unfortunately by the time he reaches the musalla, he has seen so many attractive people from the opposite gender. Allah knows best what situation he is in by the time he gets to the front row. And then he finishes his tarawih, his qiyam al-layl. By the time he gets to the car, again his eyes have fallen on ten beautiful faces that he gave a second and third look at, and his mind went somewhere else. By the time he got to the car, how did he even retain what he gained in those 20 rakats, or 8 rakats, or whatever he got? He probably didn't even make it to the car with it. There's a hole in it — he lost everything just making it to the car.

I'm serious. This is why I'm saying it's very hard. Don't say, "Who does fāhisha?" — rather ask, "Who does not do fāhisha?"

Uthman ibn Affan radiyallahu anhu — he would be sitting in his majlis, right around 15 years after the demise of the Prophet ﷺ, as khalifa. And it comes in narrations that Uthman radiyallahu anhu would say: "Why do some of you come to my gathering and my majlis with zina dropping from their eyes?" This was Uthman ibn 'Affān. Allah would allow him to sense that there are people who have that. What zina was there at that time, brothers? During the time of Uthman ibn 'Affān in Medina? Honestly, you compare one minute of any one of us — the exposure we have — compared to five or ten years of the Sahabah, and anyone who lived at that time. It's not the same. What can happen in one minute here did not even humanly exist at that time. Things didn't even exist like what we have today.

But the fact that that Sahabi or Tabi'i was coming from his home to Uthman's majlis — he obviously saw a female while coming. That's it. Just looking at a female while coming to sit where? Not in i'tikaf, not in a post-Asr dars. Brothers, you are going to sit in the company of the son-in-law of the Prophet ﷺ, who was blessed with two of his daughters as wives, who is the most virtuous person buried in Jannat al-Baqi'. And yet he is saying, "If you looked at someone before you came here, this doesn't work. Why are you coming here? Why are you coming here with zina dropping from your eyes?"

What zina did they do? They just looked at some people. And how were the women during the time of Uthman dressed? Probably in their homes they were not dressed as our women are dressed outside. Most definitely, not probably. Imagine how a woman of Medina during the time of Uthman radiyallahu anhu was dressed outside. Where was the fashion? Where was the latest attractive garb, the lipstick, the cologne — all those types of perfumes meant to attract the attention of people? Obviously that was not present there. Nowhere near what it is today. But it doesn't make a difference. One or two glances and Uthman radiyallahu anhu senses it. Imagine Allah.

If Uthman — a human being who does not receive revelation — if he can sense the evilness of that, can you imagine how much evil it presents before the angels? How much it presents itself in front of Allah?

So what I'm trying to say is: in this day and age, to keep our gaze protected from fāhisha is, I can say, nearly impossible. So what's the solution? Istighfar. Tons of it. Tons of istighfar.

When you know the pollution is so bad — COVID is spreading, airborne sicknesses — you say, "I can't avoid it, so I'm just going to cover my own face." Look at how we all looked five years ago — everyone had the niqab on their face. Wherever you went, you had niqab. That was one of the blessings of it, by the way. SubhanAllah. So similarly, when we cannot control our environment, what does a person need to do? Istighfar.

Ask yourself: if going to the masjid and leaving the masjid, our eyes are falling on someone from the opposite gender — what would Uthman say about us? What would Umar and Abu Bakr say about us? And we don't even feel how empty it is. When your car lights are on, look at how many people come and say, "Brother, make an announcement — someone's car lights are on." What's the worst thing going to happen? After three hours, the battery goes low, you get a jumper cable, and in 30 seconds the car is running. But we have to stop tarawih in front of a thousand people and announce this. Do we not realize that it is far more dangerous than car lights draining a battery — the way our spirituality gets drained when we are not controlling our gaze? What about that? When are we going to have an announcement about that? When are we going to speak about the fact that every single time our gaze falls upon a non-mahram, it is literally sucking out the spirituality from our fully charged soul — even if that soul was sitting in i'tikaf?

It reminds me, subhanAllah, a few years ago a brother was here for the full 10 days of i'tikaf. And he left at Maghrib — he said, "I'll be back tomorrow, I'll be back in a little bit." I met him at Isha, and he literally was broken, like heartbroken. He was either actually crying or was about to cry. I wondered, "What happened? Everything okay?" He said, "No, everything is not okay." I said, "What happened?" He said, "I came out of i'tikaf."

Those of you who are in 10 days of i'tikaf spending as little time as possible on the phone, not looking at images — if you have your plain simple email, but then the email also has images in it — the key thing is protecting the gaze. That's the number one thing. That's why the emphasis on the phone is to protect the gaze. If you were to somehow, through a 10-day or 5-day or 4-day stay, control your gaze from it, then when you walk outside — I tell people jokingly — you won't need to get a ride home, you won't need an Uber, you can literally fly home. Because mashaAllah, your spirituality will be at another whole level.

So this brother said: "I was at this high level of spirituality after 10 days. And then one of the brothers said, 'You want some chai?' And that was it." He went to a coffee shop in the area. And he said, "Whatever I gained, I felt like I lost it. It just took one trip to a store."

My point is not the problem of the coffee shop — it's a problem of us. SubhanAllah, yes, that's the dunya. We need to know: whether it's a grocery store or a coffee shop, the Muslim spaces unfortunately become even more of a fitnah for us. There is more attraction in a Muslimah than in a non-Muslim woman. More attraction in a Muslim than in a non-Muslim man. For most people. And most of us who are listening to me. So someone wearing so-called modern modest clothing with a scarf — but mashaAllah, with tons of makeup as well — is much more attractive to anyone and everyone. So one glance, and he felt that all his 10 days of i'tikaf were down the drain. And he's probably not lying. The ruhaniyya that you get by secluding yourself — both for women and men — by controlling the gaze: nothing equates that.

So the Quran is talking about وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا فَعَلُوا فَاحِشَةً — those who commit an act of lewdness, which is the vast majority of the ummah today. أَوْ ظَلَمُوا أَنفُسَهُمْ — or oppress themselves by committing any other sin. Oppress whom? Themselves.

Now, we're talking about which people? The people of taqwa. And where are they headed? To Jannah. And Jannah is already prepared. Allahu Akbar. This gives us so much hope. That the people of taqwa, headed to Jannah — what can happen to them? They can actually commit fāhisha. That's amazing, isn't it? To think about the fact that committing a fāhisha accidentally can happen to a person who, according to the Quran, is headed to Jannah. Headed to Jannah. And they have taqwa. But they have slipped.

Allah says فَعَلُوا فَاحِشَةً — left it like that. أَوْ ظَلَمُوا أَنفُسَهُمْ — or oppress themselves through some other sin. The question is not that you sinned or I sinned. The question is: what happens after that?

Allah says, what did these people do? ذَكَرُوا اللَّهَ — they immediately started remembering Allah. فَاسْتَغْفَرُوا لِذُنُوبِهِمْ — and they immediately began to seek forgiveness for their sins. And then Allah says: وَمَن يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — who can forgive their sins except for Allah? No one can besides Me. So you better ask Me for forgiveness. Because there is no one out there who can forgive you besides Me.

وَلَمْ يُصِرُّوا عَلَىٰ مَا فَعَلُوا وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ — and they do not remain consistent and persistent in that sin. The mistake was made, they repent and move on. They don't keep falling back into it.

These are the four qualities of the people of taqwa who are going to Jannah. Allah says: أُولَٰئِكَ جَزَاؤُهُم مَّغْفِرَةٌ — these are the people whose reward will be forgiveness. We all made mistakes — alhamdulillah, you'll get forgiveness. وَجَنَّاتٌ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ — and gardens beneath which rivers flow. خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا — in which they will remain forever. وَنِعْمَ أَجْرُ الْعَامِلِينَ — and how good is the reward of those who work.

Many people get tired for the dunya — their back hurts. Some of your backs hurt. You're standing in qiyam, you're sitting for all the talks. Brother, our back has hurt tens of times when we cleaned the garage, cut the lawn, did spring cleaning, and of course our daily work — wherever we work, our back hurts. But what about hurting our backs alhamdulillah because we're exerting ourselves in our ibadah? That's a beautiful feeling. Allah says: وَنِعْمَ أَجْرُ الْعَامِلِينَ — how beautiful is the reward of those who work.

I love this section. This is from Surah Āl-'Imrān, the second quarter of the fourth juz. You can go ahead and read these verses from there. But it gives us so many layers of advice. So much emphasis on generosity. Emphasis on guarding our anger, protecting it, and drinking it — literally. Forgiving people. And fourth — that mistakes will happen, there is no one who is sinless. But whenever a mistake happens, make sure we immediately repent.

So my dear friends, if you know someone who has committed a major sin, a fāhisha — we have no right to sit there and label anyone. We have no right to look down upon anyone. We have no right to call names. Instead, we do not know that after that sin, what type of tawbah he has done that will be more accepted in Allah's court than all the good deeds we have done.

Like the Prophet ﷺ spoke about the woman from the tribe of Ghāmid — the Ghāmidiyya — who had committed zina. The Prophet ﷺ eventually gave the command that she needs to be stoned to death. She committed a fāhisha. It's a long story — I'm not going to get into it — but how it happened: the Prophet ﷺ tried to save her multiple times, but she kept saying, "No — purify me, ṭahhirnī." And it was a lengthy process that lasted multiple years because she kept on saying, "Purify me, purify me." InshaAllah I'll cover that story soon.

But the one point I just want to say here: when she was being stoned, some of her blood fell on some of those who were stoning her, and so they cursed her. And the Prophet ﷺ said, "No. You better not curse her." He said: "This lady has done such a tawbah that if it were to be spread across the entire city of Medina, it would be sufficient to get every person in Medina into Jannah." One lady's tawbah. One lady's tawbah after committing the major sin of zina itself. But the tawbah she did after that was so powerful that it was sufficient for the entire city of Medina. You can't spread tawbah like that, but that was the tawbah she had done.

So this is a beautiful reminder: it's not about what happened — it's what you do after the fact. That's what counts.

May Allah grant us deep understanding of what we just covered. And make all of us people of these four qualities — people who are generous, people who control their anger, people who forgive people, and people who, whenever they make mistakes, immediately repent.

Du'ā #7 — Ḥasan al-Baṣrī's Prayer of Seeking Forgiveness

Today we will cover, inshāAllah, Du'ā number 7 from this book. For those of you who want your own copy — Prayers of Forgiveness — available downstairs in the bookstore. May Allah give us tawfiq to make this a habit, reading from it every day.

Ḥasan al-Baṣrī is giving this istighfar as though he is like a counselor — he hears everyone coming and confessing about their sins. That's how he speaks. These duas are so on point because he literally hits the spot in every du'ā. What is he doing? He is explaining in a very nuanced manner why we sin and how we sin. In other words, he is unveiling the way shaytān and the nafs use against us to mislead us. That's what these du'ās are doing — they are unveiling the way shaytān and the nafs attack us.

So what does he say? "O Allah, I seek Your forgiveness for every sin for which I presented my repentance before You." I already did tawbah — last year, last Ramadan, this Ramadan, in the first 20 days — I already repented. Number two: "And regarding which I stood before You swearing an oath in Your name, and called Your friends from amongst Your servants to be my witness that I would never return to disobeying You." I said, "Wallahi, I'm not going to do this, ya Allah." And then I went to some imams and pious people and elders in our community. I said, "SubhanAllah, make dua for me — I'm making proper tawbah. I'm going to change my life forever. This Ramadan has been such an amazing recharge. I've never had anything like this." They were impressed: "Look at this young brother — he wants to change." So now I'm making people witnesses to my tawbah.

Then he says three things happened: "But when shaytān with his cunning tempted me to return to the sin" — so shaytān uses his kayd, his deep cunning plot. "And your forsaking me due to your anger over my impiety caused me to despairingly waver towards it" — خُذْلَان means when Allah says, "Okay, you're on your own — I'm not going to help you." We do not want Allah to forsake us. This connects to the du'ā:

"O Ever-Living, O Self-Sustaining — by Your mercy we seek help. Set right for us all our affairs, and do not hand us over to our nafs for even a blink of an eye."

What does طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ mean? Blink of an eye. تَكِلْنَا means "do not hand us over" — to where? إِلَى أَنفُسِنَا — to ourselves, to our nafs.

Brothers, sisters — what is this du'ā teaching us? Our greatest enemy is ourselves. Our nafs. If Allah simply says, "I'm going to let you do whatever your nafs wants," and leaves the reins off the nafs — we're finished. Because our nafs is so evil, it will not be happy until it gets us into Hell. Shaytān is secondary. The nafs itself is so messed up. وَلَا تَكِلْنَا إِلَى أَنفُسِنَا طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ — do not allow us to become at the mercy of our nafs, even for a blink of an eye. So when Allah forsakes us because of our sinning, that is called خُذْلَان.

And of course the third thing: "And my lower self invited me to disobey You more." My lower self — my nafs — invited me to just do it, just commit the sin.

What happened when all of this happened and I committed the sin? He says: "I hid myself in shame from Your servants." I committed the sin, but instead of hiding from You, I hid from Your servants. "But I openly and daringly continued to commit sins before You, while trying to hide my tracks from my spouse, from my kids, from my parents, from my classmates, from the musallis, from everyone else." I said, "Whatever happens, please do not let my sins become exposed." But what about Allah watching? That was not an issue.

Then he says: "Though I knew full well that no covering nor any closed door can conceal me from You, and no veil could hide me from Your sight." وَلَا يَحْجُبُ نَظَرَكَ حِجَابٌ — no veil can save me. "I still defied You by disobediently doing what You had prohibited me."

"But despite my mistakes, what did You do? You did not remove Your covering from me. You did not expose me in front of the people." وَسَوَّيْتَنِي بِأَوْلِيَائِكَ — "And instead, You treated me equal to Your pious servants."

Look at us all sitting here. At tarawih time we will have another five or six hundred people. Can we tell who's who? No one knows, subhanAllah, who has not missed their tahajjud for three decades and who didn't pray Fajr for three decades. Everyone stands in the same row for salah. Don't ask, don't tell. Allah is treating us like His friends — He not only covered up our faults, but He's allowing us to be treated in such an amazing manner.

Then he says: "It is as though You are treating me as though I have been continuously obedient to You, as though I am continually swift to fulfill every command of Yours, and as though I have been fearful of all Your warnings — which is not the case. I'm not afraid of Your warnings. I'm not fulfilling Your commands. I am definitely not a wali of Yours — but You are treating me like that."

"I remained obscure in front of Your servants, and none besides You knew my true secrets. You did not single me out from Your servants with a mark of disgrace. Rather, You showered upon me blessings like theirs. And then with this, You distinguished me over them — as though I were in Your sight of a status like theirs."

How many times have you gone to sit with scholars? You're traveling abroad, you're sitting with someone who has been teaching hadith for 60 years, and you're sitting there sharing the same plate. And you say: "What am I doing? I remember — as sinful as I am — I sat and shared a plate with some of the greatest ulama." And you say: "Wow, Allah is just so kind. He just lets it pass. He lets us truly hide ourselves amongst people." And subhanAllah, people think we're all the same — when we are absolutely not the same. The only thing same between us is that we're humans. We're a world apart in terms of piety. But that is Allah — who makes us feel like we are in the ranks of the awliya.

وَمَا ذَلِكَ إِلَّا لِحِلْمِكَ وَفَضْلِ نِعْمَتِكَ، فَضْلًا مِنْكَ — "The only reason this is happening — all of this — was owing only to Your forbearance, Ya Allah, and Your abundant blessings. Generous grace from You to me. There is no other reason why I should have been treated in such an amazing five-star manner. For You then, O my Lord, belongs all praise."

Remember we're talking about how du'ā should be — 80% speaking to Allah, and the last 10-20% should be the ask. Build up the relationship and make the ask at the very end. The ask is at the very end. Now he's asking. Look how long this du'ā is — and only now he's asking:

"O Allah, I now ask You — just as You covered my evil deeds in this world — that You do not humiliate me with my sins on the Day of Judgement. O Most Merciful of all those who show mercy."

Say āmīn. What a du'ā. Every du'ā that we're covering in this book teaches us how to ask Allah, how to speak to Allah, and how to seek forgiveness from Allah. This gives us a lot of food for thought for this odd night that is starting at Maghrib salah. How should we be doing istighfar? Constantly speaking to Allah and saying: Ya Allah, I'm sorry. My nafs got to me, my shaytān got to me, my bad company got to me, my needs got to me, my desires got to me — but now I truly repent to You earnestly. And Allah is waiting. تَوَّابٌ رَحِيمٌ، أَرْحَمُ الرَّاحِمِينَ — Most Forgiving, Most Merciful, and the Best of those who show mercy.

We ask Allah that He blesses all of us a life filled with istighfar and tawbah. And allow us to benefit from this. And all those who are reading at home — we ask Allah to accept it on your behalf and our behalf. And may He make us amongst those who can do istighfar abundantly — 60, 70, 80, all the way up to 100 times a day.

آمِينَ يَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ

Closing Du'ā