In Islamic spirituality our forgiveness is predicated upon God forgiving us. Our awareness of our limitation, of our mistake, of our sin, awakens us to the simultaneous greatness and folly of our human agency, the personal will.
Yet it is often the case that as we seek forgiveness from God, we sense we've been forgiven but we are still unable to fully forgive ourselves. We hold on to the deed or the feeling from the act, or the feeling of being unworthy of forgiveness, forgiving and being forgiven, even though there are signs that not only others, but God as His Self-Disclosed Attribute of Exalter (Al-Mu’izz), Forgiver (Al-Ghafūr) and Eraser of sins (Al-Afū’) has forgiven us.
Prophetic or Wisdom Statements (hadiths/aphorism) such as, “Have a better opinion of God,”, are important here. When we truly have a better opinion of God, we have a better opinion of ourselves: of our life and our very existence. We are able to forgive ourselves of the harm others have done and that we have done, and let go of what God has already let go of: the limitations of the apparent autonomy of our personal will (taklīf) and our personal narrative (hadīth al-nafs).
If we hold on to all this in a negative way that confines and even strangles us in the ultimate impotence of the despair of our own doership, we are, in the end, unable to accept that God as Infinite Grace (Al-Rahmān) and Infinite Mercy (Al-Rahīm) could forgive what we did with our conscious agency—even when we want to be forgiven. This existential dilemma is a subtle reinforcing of the victim identity that the ego-self thrives on in order to live as a separate self: imprisoned in its own self-imposed misery. It is the very despair that God's Mercy warns us of: “Oh My servants who have harmed themselves, never despair of the Mercy of God, for surely God forgives all sins, and He is the All-Forgiving (Al-Ghafūr), the Most-Merciful (Al-Rahīm),” as the Qur’ān (39:53) states.
The truth of our being is that we are greater than our mistakes. God Knows this. God knows this because He also knows we are greater than our accomplishments. We are His creation. created in Love unconditionally. Our worth is precisely connected to the vast nature of God’s Infinite Grace and Love as our Creator. This sacred worth is found before we do anything. By simply being. Through Being. With God.
When we are with God through Faith, we are able to forgive by Grace. When we are able to forgive others, we are able to forgive ourselves. When we begin to forgive ourselves, we are able to know God more intimately. And when we are able to know God, we are able to know ourselves—our very existence—as God’s Love.
When we understand this, we begin to forgive ourselves. We let go and let God be in us what He always and already is: Selfless Love. We open ourselves to the possibility of accepting what has happened, and what God must be in and through us and our situation. Upon accepting and embodying this, our heart becomes open enough to forgive ourselves and others as an expression of the compassionate forbearance (hilm) that is the hallmark of all faith, religion, trust, hope, courage, sanctity and prophecy: especially that of the prophecy of Muhammad (s), sent as a Mercy to all worlds (rahmat-al-li-l-‘ālamīn), even the world of our misery and our lack of self-worth.
Divine Mercy as Grace has the first word as our existence. And Divine Mercy as Love will have the final word of our deliverance. In reality, the more we understand God as Mercy, the more we truly know God, and the more we know ourselves as Divine Love.
And God knows, loves, and forgives Best. Let us do the same.
—Hasan Awan, Al-Qadiri-Shadhili
