Istighfaar wa Tawba

https://youtu.be/3a001miSN3o Auto-generated transcript:Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wasalatu wasalamu ala ashrafil anbiya wal mursaleen. Muhammadur Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Tasleemun kathirun kathirun. My brothers and sisters, this morning we talked about istighfar and tawbah. I want to elaborate on that to remind myself and you about the importance of istighfar and tawbah. A man came and prayed, started praying in masjid of the Nabi al-Sharif. Sayyidina Ali bin Abi Talib radhi allahu anhu was sitting there. So the man came and he stood and he said, O Allah forgive me and forgive my sins. Astaghfirullah illa zi la ilaha illa huwa lahi al-quyyum wa atubu ilayh. And he said, Allahu Akbar. So when he finished his salah, Sayyidina Ali called him and he said, Do you think istighfar is only so simple? Just say Astaghfirullah and it's done. He said, This is not the way to make istighfar. He said, istighfar has several stages. He said, the first stage of istighfar is that you sincerely and deeply regret the thing that you are repenting for. So whatever is that sin that you have been committing, either of sin of commission or of omission. For example, you were supposed to do something for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. For example, the simplest and the most common one is the neglect of salah. We are supposed to pray and we don't pray and we neglect salah. So then, subhanAllah, may Allah Ta'ala give us tawfiq. Allah gives us tawfiq and we realize that this is something which I have been doing, which is very bad, I should stop doing it. And you want to make istighfar. So the first and foremost thing is to feel deeply regretful about doing the thing that you were, were not supposed to do or not doing the thing that you were supposed to do. He said, the second very important thing is that if the matter involved anybody else, for example, salah involves only the abd and the Rabb, Jalla Jalaluhu. There's no third person involved. But supposing it is that you usurped somebody's rights, you abused somebody, you slandered somebody, you did whatever you did. Which was from the rights of the people and you did not fulfill those rights or you deprived people of their rights. Then you must go and make amends. You must go and reimburse those people. You must go and apologize to those people. If you have to give back what you took, you must give it back. If you have to compensate them, compensate them. The Sahaba even asked him, he said, What if that person, the action, the actual injured person is no longer there? Because maybe I got this, you know, I got this realization that I've done something wrong. And meanwhile, this person has died or this person has gone away somewhere, is not accessible. Then what do we do? Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Then you reimburse that person's heirs. The people who inherited from that person, his children or whoever it is. And he said, if even, so the Sahaba asked, this is the Aswala, what if even those people are not there? Maybe the whole family disappeared or something. He said, then you continuously make istighfar and tawbah for that person. And you give in sadaqah, continue to give in sadaqah, with the intention that Allah SWT should reward that person for this sadaqah that you're giving. So Sayyidina Ali said, this is the second step. He said, the third step is that you hate to go back to that sin that you were committing. You're committing with such intensity that even if you had to be, even if somebody murdered you, if somebody killed you, you still would not do that. Even on pain of death, you will not go back to that sin. And this is the fourth thing is that now you do the right thing and you stay on that right thing with istighfahmat, with steadfastness. So it's the istighfah and tawbah. This is the whole process of istighfah and tawbah. As I mentioned, this body, these two words are interchangeable. They are interchangeable. If somebody just mentions istighfah, then it means istighfah and tawbah. If somebody says tawbah, it means istighfah and tawbah. But if the two words are individually mentioned and if they are explained, then they mean what they mean. Allah SWT said, Allah said, make istighfah and then turn towards Allah SWT. Istighfah is to repent, is to apologize, is to be sorry. And tawbah and tawbah is to turn towards Allah SWT. So both are important. That we are, dreadful for what we did and that we turn towards Allah SWT Jalal Jalal Hu and we live our lives in a state of obedience to Allah SWT. Istighfah and tawbah is the root and the beginning of everything good. It is the beginning of a change in our lives. It's a beginning of completely revamping whatever we are doing. Allah SWT in His infinite mercy leverages us to do good. He has left the door of tawbah open until the end. Until the end. So no matter what anybody has done, one must never lose hope. One must never ever feel that, Oh, but you know what to do. I am so old now. I have disobeyed Allah SWT for all these decades. Allah will never forgive me. This is kufr. To say Allah will not forgive me or to say to somebody else, Allah will never forgive you, is kufr. Nabi SAW said, a man went to a scholar, and he said to him, I have done all these things. And do you think Allah will forgive me? And the man said, no way, Allah cannot forgive you. Allah cannot forgive you because you are such an evil, horrible person. There is no way that Allah can forgive you. And Allah will not forgive you. Nabi SAW said, Allah SWT said, this man is trying to impose his will on me. Who is he to say that Allah, that I will not or cannot forgive somebody. So I forgive that person and I enter him into Jannah and I will punish this man and put him into the hellfire. We also have the story, the famous story again in the Hadith, where this man killed 99 people. And then he had this realization that I have done something wrong. Imagine, this serial murderer of 99 people. Then he goes to a scholar and he says to him, this is what I have done. I have killed 99 people. Do you think Allah will forgive me? And the man says, no way, Allah cannot forgive you. So this man also kills him. Out of his, you know, he obviously had a anger problem or God knows what he had. So in his fury, he kills this man also. So that is now 100. Now he goes to another scholar and he said, I killed 99 people. Then I went to this man and I asked him, will Allah forgive me? And he said, no. So I killed him also. Now I've got 100. Now what do you say? Will Allah forgive me? The man said to him, Allah will forgive you, but leave this place and go to such and such a place. He told, leave him a place which was far away from where he was. He said, leave this place. He said, the problem why you are, you are the way you are is because of your company. This place is not a good place. This place is full of evil people and you are in the middle of them. So that's, that's how you became like the way you became. So leave this place and go to such and such a place and then you make istighfar and inshallah, Allah will forgive you. So the man left and he's on his way. He went, he traveled a small distance, nowhere, close to where he was supposed to go and it was time for his death. So he died. So now, Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that the angels of Jannah and angels of Jahannam both came. And the angels of Jahannam said, well, this man is ours because he killed a hundred people and he has not made, he has not made tawbah, he has not made istighfar. So he's ours. The malaika of Jannah, they said, no, no, no. He had the intention of making istighfar. He was going there. And Allah would have forgiven him if he had made istighfar. But he did not make istighfar. It's coincidental. You know, it just happened. But he was going there for that reason. So he's ours. So, of course, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows what's going on. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows the intentions. These malaika go to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they say, Ya Rabbul Alameen, this is a story. What is your hukum? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, measure the earth from where he started to where he was going. If he, crossed the halfway mark, then he goes to Jannah. If he did not cross the halfway mark, he goes to Jahannam. So the malaika go there. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala orders the earth to stretch so that when they draw the line, it is beyond the halfway mark. So this is the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala caused this man to be forgiven. The mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is such that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, Um, O my slaves who have transgressed against yourselves. Right? Ya ibadi allazeena asrafu ala anfusihim la taqnatu min rahmatillah inna allaha yaghfiru dhunuba jami'a innahu huwal ghafurrahim This is very, very, very beautiful ayat where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, O my slaves who have transgressed against yourselves. O my slaves who have transgressed against yourselves. Because the thing to remember for us is that committing a sin, we are not harming Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Nothing can harm Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Who was samad. Allah is beyond, Allah has no need and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has no, no one can harm him, no one can help him, no one can increase his glory and majesty, no one can decrease it. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, so when we commit a sin and may Allah protect us from committing sins, when we commit a sin, we are, we are really transgressing against ourselves. Because the sin is going to harm us. Sin will not harm Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So Allah is saying, Ya ibadi. Think about it. Just see the, the Arabic and the Quran. We as human beings, of course, Ta'ala Allah wa l-ansal, I'm not giving the example of Allah, but for us normal people, our tendency is that when we, if somebody disobeys us, that you may have a, you may have a,