Assalamu Alaikum. Welcome back to Allah Loves. So last time we talked about Taqwa, piety, being the goal. And you have to avoid those thorny bushes that are on the road to Allah, and you are meant to go back to Allah but then these things keep getting in the way.

Now here’s the thing: you are inevitably going to be struck by a thorn and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Because the Prophet said, “every single one of the children of Adam is a sinner”. Every single one of us is going to commit sins, are going to get pricked. We’re going to fall behind and the best of us are those who come back to Allah. “Wa khayrul khatta’een al tawwabun”. The best of those who make mistakes are those who repent to Allah.

And so this is very important that just after we talk about these concepts of Taqwa and don’t commit sins, the next mentioned that Allah has within Surah al-Baqara is in “Allahu yuhibbu al tawwabeen”.

“Allah loves those who repent”, again framed within the love of Allah. I’m not going to talk about repentance here in the conditions of repentance and what repentance means but I do want you to understand it within the same framework of how we mentioned

The first thing: Allah did not create you to not sin. Allah created you to know how to properly deal with sin and there is a major difference between those two. The word tawba means that you turned back to Allah, not necessarily that you have removed all of the effects of that sin. Realize that even the word repentance comes back to your relationship with Allah.

So how does this all work? The sinfulness is part of your humanity, the forgiveness is part of Allah’s attributes. And if you pair those two things together and you acknowledge your sinfulness, though you don’t intentionally commit sins but you acknowledge your sinfulness even if you did intentionally commit a sin. You acknowledge your sinfulness and you try to get back on that path to Allah. You actually rise up in the degrees of favor because Allah loves al-tawwabeen. Allah loves those who turn back to Allah.

The Prophet peace be upon him said that if you were not to sin then Allah would have replaced you with the people who would sin and then they would seek their forgiveness and then they would be forgiven by Allah, because Allah loves to forgive and Allah loves.

Repentance and Allah loves those who repent and the beauty of how we paired these two things together is that there is no such thing as failure in Islam. Unless you don’t do anything about that failure there is no such thing as an action that can permanently disqualify you from the love of Allah if you repent afterwards and if you use that to propel you towards Allah.

What the Prophet peace be upon him is telling us here is that when a person commits a sin and then a person seeks forgiveness from Allah for that sin, what happens? The effect of it on the heart. The Prophet said that the dark spot that’s placed on the heart is polished so it’s not just removed. Not only is the dark spot removed but the spot is polished. As for the effect on the deeds, the Prophet said that the sin is turned into a good deed on your scrolls, so it’s actually a hasana, it’s actually a good deed.

Allah removes the sin and gives you a good deed for the repentance. The effect of it on us in regards to our position with the love of Allah: “InnaAllaha yuhibu al-Tawabeen”. Allah loves those that are always turned back, towards him, and so the effect of it with our position is that we actually get closer to Allah than we were before we committed the sin. Hence we become more beloved to than before we committed the sin.

This is why it’s not unjust that Allah created us and asked us not to sin but we still commit sin, because the degree that Allah guarantees us after committing the sin is greater than even his sinless creatures in the Angels. Because when a human being learns to deal with those sins in a way that they seek Allah’s forgiveness and they turn back to him, then they ascend even beyond the Angels in rank.

Ibn Al Qayyim puts this together and he gives us the context of two Prophets, he says “Shaytan, the devil, delighted when he saw that he caused Adam to fall. But what he didn’t realize is that when a diver goes into the ocean he collects the gems and the pearls at the bottom of the ocean and then he rises up once again.

So Adam was better after his Tawba even though he had to come to this earth. He was better after his repentance than he was before it in paradise in regards to his rank. Younus, Jonah, was better after he was swallowed by the whale than he was before he went into it.

That’s why Allah says “fajtabahu rabbahu wa ja’alahu ma’ al salaiheen”. Allah chose him and made him from the righteous after he was swallowed by the whale, after he said, “La ilaha illa anta subhanaka inni kuntu min al thalimeen.” There is no god but you how perfect are you and I was from the wrongdoers.

So again our hearts are polished, our sins are turned into good deeds and our ranks ascend in the sight of Allah, so do not – I don’t care what you came to this Ramadan with, I don’t care what you’ve done in the past. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past because you have a Lord that created your past, present and future and guaranteed you a better future if you learn how to deal with that past in a way that propels you towards Him.

We ask Allah to make us from those that are beloved to him in our repentance, in our sin, and in our good deeds. Allahumma Ameen. See you you all next time insha’Allah.