36. FORGIVENESS-SEEKING AND REPENTANCE

God says

. ….Verily. God loves those who turn unto Him in repentance …. Q.2: 222

And vie with one another to attain to your Sustainer`s forgiveness and to a paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth, which has been readied for the God-conscious who spend [in His way] in time of plenty and in time of hardship, and hold in check their anger, and pardon their fellow-men because God loves the doers of good; -- Q.3: 133,134

...and who, when they have committed a shameful deed or have [otherwise] sinned against themselves, remember God and pray that their sins be forgiven – for who but God could forgive sins? – and do not knowingly persist in doing whatever [wrong] they may have done. These it is who shall have as their reward forgiveness from their Sustainer, and gardens through which running water flow, therein to abide: and how excellent a reward a reward for those who labour! -- Q.3: 135,136

…. O our Sustainer! Forgive us, then, our sins, and efface our bad deeds; and let us die the death of the truly virtuous! -- Q.3: 193

Forgiveness-seeking, Istighfar, is for commissions and omissions whether specific or general. Repentance, Taubah, is turning away from a sin committed that can recur. (Al-Hads)


Prophet said

1. “He who seeks forgiveness is not a confirmed sinner”– H: Tirmizi, Abu Daud.
N: Abu Bakr Siddiq.

2. “One who is repentant of his sins is like one who has committed no sins” – H: Ibn Majah and Baihaqi. N: Abdullah-b-Masud.

3. “Indeed God loves a believing servant tried (by sin) but greatly repentant”–
H: Ahmed and Baihaqi. N: Ali.