Allah's Attributes

Allah's Attributes

There is no deficiency in the being of Allah. That is why one of the 99 names of Allah is Al-Hameed — the only being who deserves all praise. And to remind ourselves of this aspect of Allah, we are instructed to recite Surah al-Fatihah in every raka'ah of every salah.

And in Surah al-Fatihah we commence by praising Allah and reminding ourselves that Allah is the only being deserving of all praise. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the entire universe. And in this verse, the alif-lam is for istighraaq, so the scholars of grammar tell us that the lam of istighraaq is a lam that denotes complete inclusiveness in meaning.

This verse means all praise belongs to Allah alone. So whoever we are praising, whatever we are praising — in essence, we are praising Allah. That is why the scholars say that when we praise any of the creation of Allah, in essence we are praising the being who created this creation.

When we see a beautiful flower, or when we smell the fragrance of a flower and we praise it, in essence we are praising Allah — because Allah is that being who made this flower so beautiful, and Allah is that being who placed such a beautiful and wonderful fragrance in this flower. When we see a scholar giving a speech and we marvel at his knowledge, or we see someone with piety who is an obedient servant of Allah and we praise him for that, in essence we are praising Allah — because Allah is that being who gave this person the intellect to amass such great knowledge, and Allah is that being who gave this person the tawfiq to be obedient to Allah. So whoever we praise, whatever we praise, in essence we are praising Allah.

The Meaning of the Name "Allah"

That is why, if we study the books of aqeedah and we ask ourselves: what does the word Allah mean? The word in Islam that is used for Lord and for our God is Allah. The meaning of Allah, as explained to us by our scholars, is that the word Allah is a proper noun that denotes that being whose existence is necessary — and it is not contingent like our existence. It is necessary and mandatory. Allah existed from before time and He will exist after time.

And Allah is that being who possesses all qualities of perfection. There is not a single deficiency, there is not a single defect, neither is there any quality of deficiency found in Allah. That is why Allah is the only being who deserves to be worshipped. We say لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ — there is no one worthy of worship besides Allah.

Imam Ghazali and the People of Taqwa

Imam Ghazali rahimahullah, in his book Kimiya-e-Sa'adat — which was originally written in Farsi and later translated into Arabic — explains to scholars that this is not a statement of some buzurg or some hazrat. This is a statement and a fact that we are deducing from the Quran. Allah says: hasten towards the forgiveness of your Lord and hasten towards such a Jannah whose width is that of the heavens and the earth.

And this Jannah has been prepared for the people of taqwa. And then Allah goes on to enumerate the qualities of the Muttaqun. They are those who spend in the path of Allah in good conditions and bad conditions.

So poverty does not prevent them from spending for the sake of Allah. A person doesn't have to have a lot of money to be generous, and a person does not have to have a lot of money to spend in the path of Allah. A person has to have a big heart. A big heart causes a person to spend in the path of Allah. And they suppress their anger. They forgive. They forgive their oppressors and they forget. Not only do they swallow their anger, not only do they forgive their wrongdoers — they also treat them with kindness and they do favors upon them. So they are people with good hearts.

And then Allah says that when they commit an indecent act, an immoral act, or they oppress themselves by doing any other sin, immediately they remember Allah and they seek forgiveness from Allah. And then Allah says, but in between, Allah reminds us: who is that being who can forgive your sins besides Allah? Then Allah says: and they do not persist in doing the sin knowingly.

Persistence in Sin (Israr)

In the tafsir of this verse, Allama Alusi rahimahullah in Ruh al-Ma'ani writes that there are two types of persistence. One is the literal translation — to be persistent in doing a sin. So if a person is committing a sin 70 times in a day, from a linguistic perspective, he will be called musirrun, a person who is persistent in doing sin. But then there is another israr shar'iyy — persistence upon sin in the eyes of the shari'ah.

He says that the meaning of israr shar'i is: to be persistent in doing a sin without istighfar and without tawbah. And then he quotes a hadith that comes in the Sunan of Abu Dawud to support his opinion. He narrates this hadith that the Prophet said:

(Sunan Abu Dawud, Hadith 1514)

That person who seeks forgiveness from Allah is not regarded to be a persistent sinner, even if he commits the sin 70 times.

That is why our mashayikh say that sometimes after committing a sin, a person is regretful and remorseful and he sincerely makes tawbah and istighfar to Allah. And the amount of tears that he sheds — this tawbah, istighfar, and tears causes him to reach such proximity and closeness to Allah that if this person had to spend the entire night in ibadah, he would not have gotten that same level of qurb with Allah.

The Story of Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni

Imam al-Juwayni rahimahullah, who was given the title of Imam al-Haramayn, and who was the most prominent teacher of Imam Ghazali rahimahullah — and who was most responsible for spiritually molding the great personality of Imam Ghazali rahimahullah, who went on to become one of the greatest spiritual leaders in our Islamic history — once made du'a to Allah: "Make it such that I never commit a sin." And so a voice from the unseen came, and this voice said: "If you do not commit sins, then you will not turn to Me, and you will not seek forgiveness, you will not shed tears. And I like My servant when they turn to Me, when they seek forgiveness, when they shed tears — because I love to forgive sins. And if you do not commit sins, then you cannot reach the qurb and the proximity and the closeness that you want to reach with Me."

So then Imam al-Juwayni rahimahullah understood what the indication was. Now this doesn't mean that we should become bold and commit sins — no, that's not what this incident means.

And the Prophet said in a hadith:

By Allah, if you stop committing sins, then Allah will remove you, and He will create another creation, another nation who will be sinners — and after committing sins, they will seek forgiveness, and Allah will forgive them. Because this is how much Allah loves to forgive. So a person will never reach a level of committing sins where he should lose hope that Allah cannot forgive him.

Never Lose Hope in Allah's Mercy

Losing hope in the mercy of Allah is actually a trait of kufr. Allah says in the Quran that only those people who disbelieve — only those people with kufr — lose hope in the mercy of Allah. And this is actually a matter of aqeedah. If a person loses hope in the mercy of Allah, he actually goes out of the fold of Islam, because we learn this from a direct verse of the Quran in Surah Yusuf.

That is why Allah tells us in the Quran — Allah tells the Prophet: O Muhammad, tell your ummah, tell them on My behalf, give them this message:

O My servants who have transgressed themselves by committing sins, do not lose hope in the mercy of Allah. Verily Allah forgives all sins.

That is why sometimes this is a deception of shaytan and the nafs — that we tell ourselves: what is the point of making so much tawbah and istighfar when we already know that we will commit the sin again, so there is no need to make tawbah or istighfar. This is actually a deception from shaytan, and this is a way for shaytan to make a person become immoral and indecent and become numb to committing sins.

The Role of Salah

Allah mentions the effect of performing salah — that salah prevents a person from immoral acts and from committing sins:

Now someone might ask themselves: we pray salah but we still end up committing sins. So does this mean that this Quranic verse is wrong, or that Allah is lying? Allah is as-Sadiq al-Masduq just as the Prophet is as-Sadiq al-Masduq. Whatever they spoke is the truth, and we as believers and Muslims believe in them. That is why they are as-Sadiq al-Masduq.

So in this verse, Allah does not say that a person who performs salah will not commit sins whatsoever. Allah is saying salah will prevent a person from committing immoral acts and sins. What that means is that the person who is mindful of performing his five daily prayers will have the awareness of Allah in his heart at all times. And when he commits a sin, he will be regretful and remorseful and immediately he will remember the command of Allah. But a person who is not mindful of performing salah, who does not worry about performing salah on time — a time will come when he will become so numb to committing sins that he will not even feel regretful and remorseful when he is committing a sin.

The Essence of Tawbah

That is why the Prophet explained to us the essence of tawbah. Tawbah is not just lip service — it is an act that we do to show sincere remorse over committing a sin. The Prophet said:

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4252)

Regretfulness and remorsefulness is the essence of tawbah. Without regretfulness and remorsefulness, a person's tawbah is not regarded to be a tawbah.

And from the narration of A'isha radiyallahu anha we learn that when Allah sees sincere regretfulness over committing a sin in His servant, even before seeking forgiveness, Allah forgives him. And the narration is:

Allah does not come to know of any of His servants being regretful over committing a sin, except that Allah forgives him even before him seeking forgiveness from Allah.

Constant Istighfar and Muhasabah

So we ask Allah to give us the tawfiq to constantly seek forgiveness from Allah. And we should not only seek forgiveness after committing a sin — we should constantly make istighfar even after performing good deeds, because we are full of deficiencies. Every good deed that we do requires istighfar. And our istighfar requires istighfar. And our tawbah also requires tawbah. Because we can all look into ourselves and look at our actions, and we ourselves know how many deficiencies we have.

Allah says that every human being knows himself better than anyone else. And there is a saying in Arabic:

The owner of the house knows very well what is in his house. An outsider doesn't know what is in our house. But we know what is in our house — we know what furniture we have, what plates we have, all the possessions and items we have. But an outsider doesn't know. So this proverb is used to show that every person knows what he needs to work on and what he needs to rectify within himself.

So may Allah give us the tawfiq to make muhasabah of ourselves every day and to seek forgiveness from Allah. Everyone is requested to pray the sunnah, insha'Allah.