Download - Shap Working Party

FORGIVENESS IN ISLAM
AKBAR ALI
Liverpool Mosque
The Holy Qur’an represents man as a free
and responsible being, gifted with the faculty
of distinguishing between right and wrong.
He is endowed with a free will which gives him the freedom
to choose between obeying or rejecting God’s Commandments,
and since it is he who, in exercising his free will, decides
the course of his action, it is only logical that he must
also bear the consequences of his actions. As the Qur’an
says, “... Every soul draws the meed of its acts on none but itself; no
bearers of burdens can bear the burden of another...”
The Qur’an 6:164.
Thus personal responsibility
becomes one of the main
characteristics of the ethos of
Islam.
Every individual is held responsible for his
actions on the day of judgement as indeed he is
here in this world.
The idea of heaven and hell and the concept of
reward and punishment go hand-in-hand with
the doctrine of personal accountability which
is an imperative and its acceptance a
pre-requisite for the growth and development
of human soul and personality.
Therefore, the doctrine of “Redemption” and
the concept of the original sin have no place in
Islamic theology.
According to a saying of Prophet Muhammed (may
Peace be upon him) “Every child is born with a
Muslim heart”, and hence the common expression “as
innocent as a child” acquires special meaning and significance
for Muslims. A child is born sinless even when conceived in sin,
for parents’ sins are not visited upon their offsprings. As the child
grows he develops his “will” and his judgement and
at the age of discretion he begins to acquire and accumulate
‘credits’ and ‘debits’ in his ‘bank account’. He has the
potential of becoming God’s representative on earth and
at the same time he is in grave danger of sinking to the lowest
depths. For his salvation he needs divine guidance,
compassion and forgiveness.
The Qur’ an fully recognises the weakness and
frailty of human nature and dwells on the
subject at some length and constantly reminds
us of our inconstancy, injustice and
ingratitude. “Man is created weak”, “Surely
man is unjust and ungrateful”, “Man is hasty”,
“Verily, man is ungrateful unto his Lord” these are some of the reminders contained in
the Qur’an. It must, however, not be inferred
from verses like these that man stands
condemned before his creator as deserving
only damnation and perdition. These verses
reinforce and re-assert the truth that man
stands in need of guidance and compassion
from his Creator.
They contain in them promises of God’s grace
and forgiveness. The Qur’an is very clear on
this point when it says: “Oh you who believe,
turn to God with sincere repentance in the
hope that your Lord will remove from you your
evil deeds and admit you to gardens beneath
which rivers flow”. The Qur’an 66:8.
Another verse in the Qur’an says: “God doth
wish to lighten your difficulties for man was
made weak in flesh”. The Qur’an 4:28.
The opening chapter of the Qur’ an (al-Fatiha)
is a prayer (similar to the Lord’s prayer in
Christian faith) which a Muslim is required to
recite several times a day during prayer. Its
translation is as follows:
“In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most
Merciful, Praise be to God, the Cherisher and
Sustainer of the worlds, Most Gracious, Most
Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgement.
Thee only do we worship and Thine we seek.
Show us the straight way, the way of those on
whom Thou has bestowed Thy Grace, those
whose (portion) is not wrath and who go not
astray”. The Qur’an 1: 1-7.
It is comforting to note in the above prayer that
God’s compassion and mercy come before His
judgement. Indeed, the God we worship is
compassionate and merciful, but he is also just.
However, we are assured that His justice will
be tempered with mercy. He will not disregard
even an iota of good that we do, at the same
time He will punish those who have
transgressed and refuse to seek forgiveness.
According to the Qur’an, “On no soul doth
God place a burden greater than it can bear. It
gets every good that it earns and it suffers
every ill that it earns...” The Qur’an 2:286.
If the Creator is just and if justice and fairness
have any meaning, then surely a clear
distraction has to be made between an honest
person who obeys God’s commandments and
one who flouts the law and persists in his
transgression.
Justice demands that one should be rewarded
and the other punished. This not to say that
God in his mercy will not forgive even the
worst Sinner, nor does it place a limit on
God’s mercy and compassion.
According to the Qur’an, “say, O my servants
who have transgressed against their souls,
despair not of the mercy of God for God
forgives all sins, for He is oft-forgiving, most
merciful ”.
“Turn ye to your Lord (in repentance) and
submit to Him before the chastisement comes
to you. After that ye shall not be helped”. The
Qur’an 39:53 & 54.
In another place the Qur’an says: “... God doth
wish to make clear to you and to guide you
into the the ways of those before you and (He
doth wish to) turn to you (in mercy) and God is
All-knowing, All-wise”.
“God doth wish to turn to you, but the wish of
those who follow their lusts is that ye should
turn away (from Him) far, far away”. The
Qur’an 4: 26&27.
These verses show that God’s compassion and
love for us is so great that He seems to be
waiting to forgive us only if we would turn to
Him in repentance and seek His forgiveness.
He seems almost to be pleading with his
servants that they should give up their
transgressions and return to Him so that He
may pardon them.
God’s punishment encompasses only those
who ignore all these pleas and persist in their
rebellion and wilfully reject His commandments to the end. For them, according to the
Qur’ an, there is only one place in the Hereafter
- the Hell.
The oft-repeated attributes of God in the
Qur’an are Rahman and Rahim, i.e. Most
Compassionate and Most Merciful. He never
tires of forgiving his erring servants provided
they repent and seek His forgiveness.
According to a well-known Hadith (saying of
Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him): “O
people! turn in repentance to Allah and seek
His forgiveness for I turn towards Him seeking
His forgiveness a hundred times a day”. This
shows that the pre-requisite for obtaining
forgiveness is repentance - acknowledging
one’s errors and making amends.
Those who knowingly refuse to acknowledge
their mistakes and persist in their wrong-doings
are indeed rebels who challenge God’s
authority and have thus put themselves
beyond God’s compassion and mercy. The
Qur’an describes them as “Companions of the
Fire, to dwell therein(for ever)”.
Like the Bible, the Qur’ an also contains some
very graphic descriptions of Heaven and Hell.
Heaven is a place of peace and tranquillity, with
Beautiful gardens and rivers and the company of
pureand holy companions; an eternal abode for the
righteous in the presence of their Lord. Hell is
described as a place of intense heat with huge
fires raging all the time - an evil abode for
those who had deliberately rejected God’s
grace and mercy - a place for punishment and
torture which they had brought upon
themselves by their wilful and deliberate acts
of defiance and rebellion.
A question is sometimes raised by some
intellectuals as to why such graphic
description of hell and heaven should be given
in God’s revelation. The wisdom of such
description becomes apparent when we
recognise the fact that the Qur’an is a “book of
guidance” - a message of glad tidings and clear
warnings - for all times and all peoples, from
the time it was first revealed fourteen hundred
years ago to the day the world will come to an
end and for all peoples of different cultural
backgrounds and all individuals of varying
standards of understanding and education. By
its very nature, it must relate and appeal to the
most primitive person and at the same time to
the most sophisticated one, to the illiterate as
well as to the educated, to the ignorant and to the
learned intellectual. Each person interprets the
Qur’anic description in accordance with his
perception and to the satisfaction of his
understanding.
As we have seen, Islam presents a balanced
view of forgiveness and judgement. Justice
demands that wrongdoers must bear the
consequences of their actions, but if they
repent and seek forgiveness then God has
promised to forgive those who repent and God
never breaks His promise. As the Qur’an says
“... Thy Lord is quick in retribution, but He is
also oft-forgiving, most Merciful”. The
Qur’an 7:167.
Note: Qur’ anic references are numbered thus:
The Qur’an 7:167; means Chapter 7: Versel67.
English Translation by Maulana Yusuf Ali.