o matter how far astray we have gone, no matter how far from God we have wandered, no matter how many sins we have committed, no matter what we have done or said, there is no place too far for God’s infinite forgiveness and mercy to reach. One of the greatest gifts God has given us is the practice of tawba. One of the most commonly associated words with the Arabic word tawba is
“repentance,” but tawba actually more literally means “to return.”
Tawba is a hopeful reminder that our everlasting spirits cannot be irreparably stained by our mortal actions or words.
When we turn to Allah asking for forgiveness, we are in essence returning to who we really are, by removing the veils of sin that have prevented our true vision. As Allah says, “It is not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts” (22:46). Tawba purifies our heart so that Allah’s
light can penetrate our soul, giving us divine insight. In this way, repentance turns our inner gaze from a place of ego-consciousness to God-consciousness, returning our hearts from this mortal world and its fleeting desires to Allah and His eternal peace.
When we engage in sincere tawba, we reach out to Allah, praying for Him to cover our sins with the cloak of His mercy. At its essence, tawba is about tuning into and connecting with how loved we are by God. We don’t have to understand every cause and effect of our mistakes in order to repent, because tawba is the act of surrendering the entire matter into the hands of Allah.
God’s Guidance Begins and Ends with Forgiveness
The first prayer human beings made was one of forgiveness, when Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree and said: “Our Lord!
We have wronged ourselves. If You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers” (7:23). Allah responded to this prayer by forgiving Adam and Eve as the Qur’an says, “Then Adam received from his Lord [some] words, and He accepted his repentance. Indeed, it is He who is the accepting of repentance, The Merciful” (2:37). The very first guidance God gave to us is to seek His forgiveness, and among the final prayers we human beings will make on the Day of Judgment will be a prayer seeking God’s forgiveness. It has been said that as we approach the gates of Heaven we will pray that Allah amplifies the light of our heart by praying, “Our Lord, perfect for us our light and forgive us.
Indeed, You have power over all things” (66:8). Asking for forgiveness is not something we should be ashamed of doing, but something God expects and wants us to do.
“A bad deed which you regret in your heart is a thousand times better than the good deed that makes you feel proud.”
IMAM ALI
The Arabic word for “seeking forgiveness” is istighfar and is related to the Arabic word al-mighfar, which means “covering the
head from something harmful.” In other words, istighfar not only covers our sins with the mercy of God, but it also protects us from the harm that we inflict on our own souls.2
The act of seeking God’s forgiveness is itself a protection from the consequences of our own actions. Istighfar is not just about seeking forgiveness from our sins, it is also about seeking forgiveness for not doing enough. Since as human beings we will always fall short in worshipping and serving God as He deserves, we seek for forgiveness for even our good actions, relying on God’s mercy to fill in the gaps of our deficiencies. Whether we get distracted during prayer, or seek worldly praise for our acts of kindness, we are in desperate need for God to constantly cloak both our sins and our good deeds with the garment of His loving forgiveness.
“Why do you not seek forgiveness of Allah that you may receive mercy?”
QUR’AN 27:46
When we seek God’s forgiveness, God actually elevates our station. As the Prophet Noah says in the Qur’an, “My people, seek forgiveness from your Lord and turn to Him in repentance. He will send you abundant rain from the sky and add strength to your strength. Do not sinfully turn away from Him” (11:52). When we respond to our humanity by seeking forgiveness and returning to God, He responds by raining upon us His blessings of grace. It is not in being perfect that we access God’s mercy, but through tawba and seeking forgiveness.
Returning to the Oneness
Another word for repentance is “atonement,” which can also be read as “at-one-ment,” reminding us that when we seek forgiveness we become at one with God’s mercy and love. Repentance is the act of emptying and breaking all the idols and gods we have placed in the sanctuary of our hearts before the one true God. We seek forgiveness for making gods of our desires, reputation, envy, money,
fame, or other people’s opinions. In essence, every sin we commit is an act of reaching toward the world for that which only Allah can give to us. Just like a shadow points to the light, sin points to the places within us that depend on the world to fulfill our needs instead of Allah.
When Allah makes us aware of a sin we committed, He is not punishing us, but rather inviting us toward His presence. In this way, the moment we are drawn to sincere repentance, we are in effect unveiling the forgiveness that Allah has already written for us to experience. Someone asked the great eighth-century mystic Rabia Al-Adawiyya, “I have sinned much; if I repent, will Allah forgive me?”
She profoundly replied, “It is the opposite; if Allah forgives you, you are capable of repentance.”
As the Qur’an says, Allah “calls you that He may forgive your faults” (14:10). It is not our repentance that leads to forgiveness, but Allah’s infinite mercy and forgiving nature that acts as a divine force of gravity, returning us to who we have always been beneath the dust of forgetfulness and sin.3 The fact that tawba means “return”
implies that in every moment we have everything we need to walk toward Allah. In essence, tawba makes room for the blessings that Allah has already written for us to experience.
Begin Right Now
Our path of return to God begins exactly where we are. We are not meant to be worthy of God before we turn to faith, but rather it is through God’s all-encompassing mercy (Ar-Rahman) that we are made worthy. In other words, there is no such thing as being too bad, too lost, or too broken for a God who created everything in existence to fix and repair. Rumi says, “Water says to the dirty,
‘Come here.’ The dirty one says, ‘I am ashamed.’ Water says, ‘How will your shame be washed away without me?’” Even if we keep making the same mistake or falling for the same temptation, God calls us to keep seeking the cleansing waters of His mercy.
Do not listen to the voices that say you are too imperfect for a perfect God, that you are too filthy to be cleaned, or too horrible to be redeemed—no matter the life you have led, your mistakes or sins can never be greater than God’s mercy.
“Oh My servants who have transgressed against their souls! Do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving,
the Merciful.”
QUR’AN 39:53
The Prophet Muhammad said, “Satan said: ‘By Your might, Oh Lord, I will continue to mislead the children of Adam, as long as their souls are in their bodies.’ The Lord said: ‘By My might and majesty, I will continue to forgive them, as long as they seek my forgiveness.’”4 Ultimately, our greatest loss is living a life without asking God for forgiveness. Allah is Al-Afuw or “The Pardoner,”
whose forgiveness is like a divine presidential pardon: He completely eradicates the record of our sin and removes all the negative consequences of our choices. The mercy of God is why the Qur’an beseeches us to seek for forgiveness.
“Glorify the praises of your Lord and ask for His forgiveness. Verily, He is ever accepting of repentance.”
QUR’AN 110:03
Do not be discouraged if you find yourself facing a problem or temptation that you thought you had already conquered. Spiritual progress follows the shape of a spiral: even when it seems like you are going back to where you started, you can actually be ascending in a deeper way. The practice of tawba is a means of spiritual course correction, in which we realign our hearts and intention toward Allah.
A modern-day example of the importance of checks and balances is airplanes. An airplane spends 90–95 percent of its time off course, due to weather and human error; the only way it reaches its desired destination is through constant course correction.5 No matter how much we stumble off the straight path, we can still reach the destination of divine eternal love, so long as we keep striving to return.
Transforming Your Temptations into Prayers
Becoming more spiritual and God-conscious does not mean we’re no longer tested with the voices and thoughts of temptation conjured by our ego, but rather that we have more awareness around the voices that call us toward darkness, shame, and separation. Just as the stars are always in the sky, but we only can see them in the darkness of the night, the voices of the ego and Devil may remain present. The difference between someone close to God and someone turned away from God is not in whether or not they are tempted, but rather in where they are focusing their attention.
The more we turn to God’s light, the brighter the skies of our mind become and the dimmer the stars of the ego and Devil appear in comparison. Instead of looking to self-reliance to overcome temptation, we are called to lean into God. The Devil is an expert at using our imperfections to make us feel unworthy of having a relationship with God. If we try to fight the Devil we will always lose, so the only way to overcome the Devil is through the help of God.
“Those who are aware of God when a passing impulse from the Devil touches them, they bring God to remembrance and at once they see things clearly.”
QUR’AN 7:201
No matter what the Devil tempts you with, instead of fighting the temptation or trying to figure out a way around it, go to Allah first. A powerful way to do this in practice is to respond to every temptation with a prayer. Take a moment and be conscious of the distractions or temptations you’re experiencing. Whenever you are being drawn away from your heart and toward something that is against one of the commands of God and feels like it will not serve the holiness of your heart, you are being tempted by the Devil.
The voices of the Devil might sound like, You are not good enough, you will always fall short...you will never overcome this addiction, you are too sinful for God...this is not that big of deal, just one more time and then you can give this up, God doesn’t really
care...God will not accept someone as bad as you anyway, so you might as well do what feels good. You may even notice how the Devil thrives on hopelessness and despair. The Devil will use your shortcomings to instill fear and shame within you, trying to make you feel you are not worthy of having a relationship with God.
Once you are conscious of the voice of the Devil, don’t fight his voice or be drawn into it; rather, turn it over to God in the form of a prayer. For example, if the Devil tempts you with lust, ask Allah for help in turning your desires toward Him. If the Devil tries to get you to stop praying, ask Allah for help in being more attentive in prayer. If the Devil attempts to shame you through shortcomings in your faith, ask Allah to help purify your intentions. When you become aware that the Devil attacks the places in your faith that are the weakest, his whispers of temptation actually become doorways into how to strengthen your faith and become closer to God.
When we turn away from Allah’s light, like the Earth when it turns away from the sun, we fall into a state of spiritual darkness, not because Allah punished us but because out of our free will we chose to turn our awareness away from the light of truth. However, the darkness of separation is an illusion; Allah is closer to us than the very breath in our lungs. Repentance is returning our awareness to the divine connection we are already plugged into, by awakening us from the illusion of separation from God. When we return to face Allah through repentance, Allah not only forgives our sins, but the sins themselves become reminders of Allah’s mercy and forgiveness. In this way, our sins become symbols of Allah’s love and thus serve to return our gaze to the face of the Divine.
As the Qur’an says, “Except those who repent and believe, and do righteous deeds, for those, Allah will change their sins into good deeds, and Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful” (25:70). Allah blesses us beyond what we deserve and gives to us without accounting from the storehouses of His grace. God is consistently seeking to forgive us; repentance is just one of the ways we can access His eternal and overflowing mercy.
“Our Lord descends to the lowest heaven in the last third of every night, and He says: ‘Who is calling upon Me that I may answer him? Who is asking from Me that
I may give to him? Who is seeking My forgiveness that I may forgive him?’”6 PROPHET MUHAMMAD
Turning Toward God
When we repent, we are simultaneously turning away from sinful actions and turning toward God for realignment on the straight path of truth. It is important to always ask God for help, but we must also strive to live by the principles that Allah has called us to foster within ourselves.
“Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change themselves.”
QUR’AN 13:11
When we turn from our sins, and actively and intentionally turn towards God’s light, everything changes. Albert Einstein famously said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” In other words, repentance helps us change our state of mind and heart, shifting our frequency from ego- consciousness to God-consciousness—allowing us to tune into the channel of divine love that is continuously being broadcasted in every single moment. The Qur’an says, “Allah loves those who repent and those who purify themselves” (2:222), because repentance allows us to experience God’s love by removing the veils of illusion and sin.
God’s love for us does not change with the tides, it does not strengthen and weaken like the waxing and waning moon; it is consistent and unconditional for “God is independent of all creatures”
(3:97). It is not Allah’s love for us that changes, rather it is our awareness of His love that can become veiled. This is why how we act can have a profound effect on what kind of reality we experience.
As the Qur’an says, “Then as for him whose measure of good deeds is heavy, He will live a pleasant life” (101:6-7). Through repentance and good deeds, God gives us the ability to open the blinds created
by sin, allowing the light of God’s love to come inside our hearts, bringing with it endless waves of peace and contentment.
When we realize that repentance is not something we have to do, but rather something we get to do, our whole life begins to change. We begin to see that when Allah gives us the awareness that we have sinned, He is not shaming us, but actually calling us back into the arms of His love. As Rumi says, “The wound is where the light enters,” because it is in our weaknesses that we taste God’s strength, it is in our shortcomings that we experience God’s perfection, and it is in our brokenness that we feel God’s mercy.
A perfect metaphor for this is found in an ancient practice in Japanese art called Kintosukuroi, meaning “golden repair.” In Kintosukuroi, pottery that is broken is repaired with gold or silver lacquer, as a way of embracing and celebrating the beauty that comes with being broken.7 The beauty in our imperfections is that, through repentance, our scars transform from moments of regret to reminders of God’s mercy and compassion. It feels freeing to know that the ways in which we fall short are doorways back into the divine presence of perfection. As one mystic profoundly put it, “Oh my Lord!
I am my weakness, but You are my strength.”
The Infinite Power of God’s Forgiveness
The Prophet expressed God’s incomprehensible mercy through a profound story he once told his companions about a man who had unjustly killed many people.
There once was a man who, after killing 99 people, suddenly felt a sense of remorse and wanted to know if there was any chance that God would forgive him.
He found a holy monk and asked him if he would be forgiven by God if he repented. The monk made the mistake of saying that he would not be forgiven, so the man became angry and killed the monk.
Then the man sought out a famous scholar and told him that he had killed 100 people and wanted to know if there was any chance he would be forgiven. The scholar knew that in order for the man to change, his environment would have to change, so he replied, “Who stands between you and repentance? Go to such and
such land; there [you will find] people devoted to prayer and worship of God, join them in worship, and do not come back to your land because it is an evil place.”
The man made sincere repentance and set out on a journey toward a holy land of faithful believers. However, before he reached his destination, the man died. Upon his death, the angels of mercy and the angels of torment began to argue over who would take his soul. The angels of mercy said, “This man has come with a repenting heart to Allah.” The angels of punishment said, “He never did a virtuous deed in his life.”
God then sent a third angel, in the shape of a human being, to mediate between the two sides. The mediator said, “Measure the distance between the two lands.
He will be considered to belong to the land to which he is nearer.” The angels measured the land and found the man was closer to the land of piety, so the angels of mercy were commanded to collect his soul. Some commentators say that the distance that was measured was at first against the man, but Allah, through His mercy, stretched the earth in the man’s favor.8
It’s important to understand that on the Day of Judgement, those who have wronged, hurt, or killed people, will be held accountable for their actions in a perfectly just way. This story is not saying that we can do whatever we want and then passively seek forgiveness, but rather it is reminding us that we are redeemable if we sincerely turn back to God. This story reminds us that the light of divine compassion has a way of transforming even the hardest hearts.
Mercy does not create the space for evil, hopelessness or feeling as if we are not redeemable or are inherently bad is what turns us away from God. As an ancient proverb says, “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” We must be less like the judgmental monk and more like the wise scholar. We cannot change the world through fear or shame.
Change happens when we make the path easy for people, when we inspire them toward their greatest potential through hope and love.
As the great scholar Imam Al-Ghazali said, “Half of the weight of the spread of disbelief in the world is carried by religious people who made God detestable to His creation through their terrible conduct and terrible speech.” Our calling is not to judge people, but through love to inspire them toward their greatest potential.
“Treat people with ease and do not be hard on them; give them glad tidings and do not make them run away.”9