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Repent, For Allah is Merciful
By:
Dr. Ahmad Shafaat
(1985)
This article is for you even if you do
not consider yourself a "good" Muslim, even if you commit some of
the major sins such as adultery. Indeed, this article is for you
even if after coming to North America you have become a Hindu,
Christian, communist or an atheist or you are married to one of
these and you are letting your spouse raise your children as
kafirs (non-believers, who are bent on rejecting God).
Whatever kind of person you have become
after coming here, receive from God and His Messenger the good news:
God is most merciful and most forgiving and as more than willing to
receive you back in His mercy. He says in His book:
"O those of My servants who
have transgressed against your own selves, despair not of God's
mercy. God does forgive all sins, for surely He is the most
forgiving most merciful one." (39:53)
The relationship between you and your
Creator is not such that once spoiled it has to stay spoiled. At any
time we can turn to Him in repentance and make peace with Him. With
repentance God washes our slates completely clean as if there was
never any spot of sin on them.
If you take one step
towards God, he will take two towards you. If you come to Him
walking, He will come to you running.
Even though it would not harm God in the
least if the whole of mankind abandoned faith and goodness, God is
overjoyed when one of His servants, lost in faithlessness and sin,
comes back to Him. Imagine a mother who has lost her baby in a crowd
and is nervously searching for it. Imagine now her joy when she
finds her lost baby. When a servant of God returns to Him after
being lost in faithlessness and sin, the joy of God is more than
seventy times greater than the joy of such a mother.
Now imagine a man traveling alone in a
desert on a camel. He goes to sleep for the night and when he wakes
up he finds his camel missing. He searches for his beast on foot for
hours, during which time the sun warms up the desert, and thirst and
hunger bring the man close to extinction. Just then he sees the
camel walking towards him with water, food and other provisions. The
happiness of God when a sinner returns to Him is like the happiness
of this traveler at the moment he sees his lost camel.
Repent, therefore, to this loving and
merciful God.
But if you keep rejecting God's offer of mercy and forgiveness, then
know that the judgment of God can come anytime. The same God that
can be more loving than the most loving mother, also can at times be
stricter than the most strict father.
Repentance does
not mean being perfect. We can never be
perfect since even prophets have at times made mistakes. Repentance
means to abandon one's rebelliousness and arrogance before God and
to stop deliberately disregarding His commandments without feeling
any shame. Repentance means to humbly hope for the mercy of God and
to fear His judgment while doing the best one can to fulfill divine
wishes within the limits of one's human weaknesses. |