Repentance

Opening

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, Protector of the righteous, Protector of the wrongdoers. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, The King, the Truth, the Manifest, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, The Truthful, the Promised, the Trustworthy.

Main Body

Today's session is going to be just dedicated to the book of Imam al-Ghazali, which concerns the subject of tawbah. Tawbah, which we translate as repentance, but which, as the Imam will unfold for us, comes to mean a lot beyond that, behind that, and even above that.

We won't have time to look into every nook and cranny of the Imam's text, but insha'Allah we'll be able at least to skim the surface and to intuit and breathe some of the fragrances that are coming up from the extraordinary depths of this book that has had such a transformative effect on the lives and the souls of so many Muslims over the last 900 years.

So the Imam begins with these words: That's how he begins, and it begins with a kind of definition, as you can see.

What it means is this: Tawbah, repentance from sins, by returning to the one who conceals faults and the one who knows all hidden things, is the beginning of the path of the wayfarers.

Religion is not just sitting still. In fact, you can't sit still. It's like riding a bicycle. If you try and stay still on a bicycle, you fall over. You have to make constant effort, otherwise some disaster ensues.

What the Imam is indicating to us at the beginning of this extraordinary text is that religion is all about being in a state of motion. This is what we call suluk, wayfaring. We are traveling from what we barely remember through a world that we barely understand to a future whose outlines have been described to us through revelation, but which in our hearts we know we cannot even begin to imagine.

That's the human condition. We know very little, we remember very little, we hope for so much. That's Bani Adam. We're forgetful creatures. We are created weak.

Man has been created weak.

We've been created in a state of forgetfulness. This is one of the characteristics that sums us up. Some of the ulama even say that the reason why human beings are called insan is that it's related to nisyan, which is the Arabic word meaning forgetfulness.

The human being was only called insan because he was charged with a trust and then he forgot.

And that's what we are. Proudly we call ourselves homo sapiens, the creature, the man, the humanity that knows, that understands. We're so proud of our achievements. But in fact, for everything that we know, there is an infinite number of things that we don't know.

For everything that we remember, there are millions of things that we forget. We are in our consciousness, in our capacity to remember, in our capacity to discipline ourselves, to articulate our needs, our urges, our fears, our insecurities, really very weak creatures. And that's why we need this suluk, this wayfaring.

Imam al-Ghazali is nudging us at the beginning of this text by saying this is مَبْدَأُ طَرِيقِ السَّالِكِينَ - The beginning of the way of the wayfarers is what توبة turning around, repentance, right at the beginning of this path to reality is this process of توبة

And then he goes on: ورَأْسُ مَالِ الْفَائِزِينَ - And it is the capital of those who triumph.

What is it that we bring with us? What we need to put in the صُرّة in the purse, that we can carry with us into the next world is what's in the heart. This is the exchangeable currency. And because of the generosity of Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى just as the wealth of this world and the next world is exchangeable for nothing at all. Those things that we are given, the good deeds the أَعْمَالٌ صَالِحَة the few pathetic things that we can offer to our Lord on the last day that were done purely for His sake.

خَالِصَةٌ لِوَجْهِهِ الْكَرِيمِ - They are exchangeable, not just on even terms, but for something that goes on forever. And that's His generosity يُوَفِّي أُجُورَهُمْ وَيَزِيدُهُم بِغَيْرِ حِسَابٍ سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى He rewards without reckoning.

That's the capital that we need to be investing in.

وَمِفْتَاحُ اسْتِقَامَةِ السَّائِرِينَ - And the beginning of the progress of the سائرين We are سالك, we are all moving through this world. We are all mobile as human beings. Our hearts are constantly in a state of flux.

One day is never the same as the previous day. We don't know how it will be the next day. But there is also this condition, as well as going, which is being directed.

إرادة - Which means consciously putting oneself in the hands of how things are, of the divine reality, of the divine command over everything. And we do that, of course, by following the Book of Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى and the Sunnah of His beloved Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم

And the key to going straight is going straight. And it's اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ - It's the first thing that we pray for.

One of the first stammering words the Muslim baby learns is اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ - Guide us to the straight path. And who knows how many times we'll repeat that, sometimes with our hearts, sometimes just with our tongues, through the course of our Muslim lives. Who knows? Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى . And the recording angels know.

But what is this استقامة? The shortest distance between two points. And that's the easiest way. The هوئ the نفس, the ego, the passion wants to take us this way and that way to see this and to see that and to see him and to see her.

He - سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى يَدْعُوكُمْ إِلَى دَارِ السَّلام is actually the easiest way because Allah استقامة But the summons you to the abode of peace, the place where our hearts crave to be.

And the استقامة is actually the easiest way. Everything else, following Iblis, following Shaytan, following هوى following this, that and the other, the advertising men, whatever it might be, is pulling us in a dozen different directions.

But Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى is calling us to be مُسْلِم and to go to the place where it is the eternal happiness.

سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى And the rising place of the chosen ones near to Allah - وَمَطْلَعُ الاِصْطِفَاءِ وَالْاجْتِبَاءِ الْمُقَرَّبِينَ

We know in the Qur'an that there are أَصْحَابُ الشَّمَالِ - the people of the left hand بالله والعياذ whose destiny is that fire which they created for themselves and there are the أَصْحَابُ الْيَمِينِ - the people of the right hand who are in, insha'Allah, the gardens.

Beyond the gardens, there is نَعِيمٌ مُّقِيمٌ - and finally, beyond that, there is الْمُقَرَّبُونَ - وُجُوهٌ نَّاضِرَةٌ إِلَى رَبِّهَا ناظرة - the delight of looking upon His beautiful face.

And He says about Adam. Why does He do that? Obviously, again, right at the beginning of the Qur'an. What's the first big story? The big مَثّل that we are given to contemplate. The Qur'an does not begin with in the beginning there was the Word, the kind of Genesis idea. It begins with what really matters to us, which is the beginning of humanity.

And with this extraordinary subtle story about the mystery of the angels, first of all, who are commanded to bow down to something that is made of clay and apparently lower than themselves. فَسَجَدُوا إِلَّا إِبْلِيسَ And they all bow down except for Iblis. He refuses.

And why does he refuse? What is the reason for this first tear in the fabric of creation? He says أَنَا خَيْرٌ مِّنْهُ خَلَقْتَنِي مِن نَّارٍ وَخَلَقْتَهُ مِن طِينٍ - I am better than him because you created me of fire and you created him

of clay.

That's how the Qur'an really describes the beginning of sacred history. And of course, Adam, alayhi salam, is the first man. And in very many Islamic language, Adam just means a man. It does in Turkish, Persian, and a lot of other Islamic languages. He is the prototype of what it is to be human.

And right at the beginning of his prototypical story, there is this mystery that is within him. So what does it mean? If our basic nature is to forget and we often commit sins, and that goes right back to Iblis, the angel that sinned, why was that? And how can we avoid it?

Iblis is looking with his mind and with his eye, but not with his heart. What does he see? His reason sees just this. It's not going to last very long. It rots away. It becomes repulsive in the grave. What is it? It's clay.

From it did we create you, to it shall we return you, and from it shall we raise you up one more time.

It's just mud, these things. Adam, his very name, from أدِي الْأَرْضِ - the face of the earth, what is lower than mud? We are most humiliated when we're thrown down in the mud, and Iblis, going to bow down to something like that. He's judging by externals. He's looking at حِس not at مَعْنَى

He's looking at what the senses can perceive, not at what the meaning is behind what the senses perceive. He's looking at the curtain. He's not looking at what is beyond the curtain.

But Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى tells us some more extraordinary things about Sayyiduna Adam :عليه السلام وَنَفَخْنَا فِيهِ مِن رُّوحِنَا - And we breathed into him something of our spirit.

What could that be? In our books of aqidah, we're not actually told that. Even Sayyiduna Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم is not actually told that.

Say the spirit is of the command of my Lord and of knowledge I've been given but little.

That's the most he can know صلى الله عليه وسلم and much more than what we can know. But nonetheless, the angels through some basirah that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has given them and or because of their obedience bow down.

And it is legitimate for them to bow down even to makhluq, to a creature. Iblis عليه اللعنة is not going to do that because he sees only the form. So right at the beginning, what the Imam is saying, right at the beginning of this issue of human beings going astray, entities going astray, and then the need to return is this question of fully understanding the commandment and what you are doing.

And that's very important for us today I think. Very often in a world which is against the idea that human beings can be made noble and more dignified and more happy by complying to a religious law, we are

happy when we are conformed to the way our Creator wants us to be, which is nobility. Modern world doesn't give you dignity, nobility, that kind of istiqamah.

It gives you opportunities and options and pleasures in illimitable variety, but this dignity, this karamah, is generally not there. What the Imam is indicating here is there is a basic choice which is about the inward and the outward. Right at the beginning of this book, he wants to remind us that religion is not just about outward conformity.

It's not just about listening to commandments and prohibitions and complying to them. It's about something inward, which Allah speaks of as the ruh. And that's the reality of religion.

Iblis, alayhi al-la'na, goes wrong because he's a person of the zahir, of the external. He only sees the form. And on the basis of his understanding, he even defies the direct commandment of his Lord, so obsessed is he with the external.

And the people of zahir, the people who only follow the outward, rusum, in religion, those people who say it is only about obedience or prohibition or about form, and it's never about meaning, and it's never about beauty, and it's never about love, and it's never about the spirit, they are guilty of the same kind of rebellion. And just as Iblis, alayhi al-la'na, throws the world into uproar and disorder, so also those who are in the world, whether or not they claim to be following religion or secularity, will bring about uproar in people's hearts and in the world if all they see is the external.

Don't think, brothers, that it is enough just to follow the outward form. We have linked to the story of the fall of the devil. Immediately afterwards, we have what we might call the fall of Adam, alayhi salam, and then his immediate restoration. And that's no less extraordinary a story.

And again, the Imam is going to want us to consider that.

Adam and Eve were caused to stumble by the devil, and he expelled them from the state which they had been.

And we don't say, and we don't use the word, and the Qur'an does not use the word suqoot, fall. This is a kind of Christian way of looking at it. Instead, hubut is the word, going down. That's what a plane does, hubut. They say that in modern Arabic.

And he comes down to this earth, and then فَتَلَقَّى آدَمْ مِن رَّبِّهِ كَلِمَاتٍ فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ - And Adam received from his Lord certain words, and he turned towards him.

And Adam received from his Lord certain words, and he turned towards him.

Which, according to the people of tafsir, either means Allah relented towards Adam, or Adam repented towards his Lord. But, of course, the two are just different ways of looking at the same phenomenon. But the point is, a line is drawn underneath original sin at this point. But that doesn't mean that our problems are over.

It doesn't mean that there will not be replications of the error of Iblis, which is the zahir error, or replications of the disobedience of Adam and his wife. Because there will always be tawbah, and because the human history, and the brilliance, and the depth, and the pain, and the genius, and the dignity of humanity would not be full unless there was this possibility of slipping and stumbling.

As the hadith says, (كُلُّ بَنِي آدَمَ خَطَّاءٌ، وَخَيْرُ الْخَطَّائِينَ التَّوَّابُونَ - kullu bani adama khattaa'un, wa khairul khatta'eena at-tawwaboon) - All the descendants of Adam make mistakes, and the best of those who make lots of mistakes are those who regularly make tawbah. (Hadith - Reported by At-Tirmidhi)

So this is why the imam wants us to begin considering this. This is primordial. This is about human nature itself. We cannot imagine ourselves, our personalities, our strengths, our weaknesses, except in the context of our limitations. We know ourselves, our humanity is tested most certainly in situations where there is real temptation. If there was no temptation, no possibility of sin, we couldn't actually be the human beings that Allah wishes us to grow into.

There wouldn't be this suluk, this wayfaring. So this is part of the subtle way in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has chosen to create us, creatures of this clay, but nonetheless susceptible of something that makes us wear higher than the angels, potentially higher than the angels. That's why the anbiya, alayhimusalam, are the best of creation, way above the angels.

And the best of the anbiya is Sayyidina Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wasalam, right at the top of the created hierarchy. The first thing, the most beautiful thing, the most perfect thing to be created was the light of Sayyidina Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wasalam, as it has come in hadith. And from that, everything else then progressively moves out into multiplicity and darkness, shadows, and light, and we're in this world of mulk wa shahada, in which we exist, and where we are called to follow this path of suluk that takes us up and takes us out.

Everything is on a knife edge, and similarly, in the human soul (وَهَدَيْنَاهُ النَّجْدَيْنِ) - we all know those two very powerful tendencies. (Quran 90:10)

We have in our hearts a very strong wish to help people to be beyond ourselves, to be kind to parents, to children, to animals, to make the world a more beautiful place. That's part of the nobility of Bani Adam. We also know within our souls there is that fiery greed that pulls us down to the self. Look at this. Taste that. Listen to this. Say that. Do this.

All of those things which often grab us, these hooks. We are balanced on a knife edge, and that's part of the subtlety of Allah's creation in the human heart. Now, what is the basis, and the imam is going to talk about this next, what is the basis of this human madda, this substance, that has these two powerful tendencies, that wants to reach out for what is good, and wants also to reach out for what is dark and ugly and destructive, and this endless battle that is within ourselves.

What is the remedy? What is the diagnosis? Well, the imam says that the human heart is like a metallic alloy, and we all know if you have a lump of metal, a cold lump of metal, say of iron, if there's impurities in it, how do you get those impurities out? How are you going to remove them? There's only one way. You have to heat it up. You have to really heat it up until it starts to melt, and then you can engage in various metallurgical processes that purify it, and that's what iron foundries do, and that's the basis of metallurgy, and you can make it pure.

Without the heat, you can never do it. The heart is like that. The heart is a maddin, is a kind of metal. How do we heat it up? There's two fires. There is the one, which is the one that it will finally face so that it has to be returned to that state of purity with which it was created, and that's the fire of jahannam for those who postpone things until the final purification takes place, or there's the other fire that can also heat it up in this world, which is the nar al-tawbah, which is the fire of penitence, of genuinely feeling sorry for something, and again, part of the subtlety, the lot of Allah's creation in human beings is that this is one of the most powerful of human impulses.

The person who has done something wrong, secretly, nobody knows. He's done something really ugly. He's stolen a lot of money. He's cheated on his taxes. That fire in people's hearts is something that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has created within us, and that's the basis of the fire of tawbah, but we need to be more specific, and that's where the imam goes on.

We can't just have this generalized sense of guilt within ourselves and not know what to do about it. We have to have, first of all, the knowledge of exactly what it was that we did that was wrong, and then the knowledge of how to put things right, and then finally, the knowledge, and as he'll tell us, the certainty that once we have done that, it is wiped out.

Chapter on the True Nature of Tawbah

Know that tawbah is an expression which is composed of three matters which occur in sequence.

- Knowledge, a state, action.

Knowledge is the first, the state is the second, the action is the third. The first causes the second and the second causes the third according to a sequence which Allah's arrangement of things in the world has made inexorable.

That is to say, if you have the knowledge, the state will necessarily follow. That state of guilt, the fire of remorse, the desire to put things right. Once you understand what you've done, you will have that sense.

And once you have that sense, necessarily, if you truly have that sense of remorse, you will have the capacity to do something about it.

Now, how do we diagnose the ma'asi and the sins? There are some which we know by intuition, and this is part of Allah's generosity to human beings, that we so often know what is right and what is wrong intuitively. And the list of virtues, truthfulness, sincerity, honesty, selflessness, humility, all of those things, is pretty much the same in every civilization. We know what is a good, decent, dignified human being, and we know what is a rascal, somebody who's following the dirtier possibilities in his ego.

But we also need boundaries, because very often we're not quite sure. The halal and the haram often are clear, but sometimes between them there's things that are not quite so certain. And very often, that's because of our ignorance, but also very often, that's because sometimes the nafs, the ego, the hawa, can make us believe that something that actually is bad is not so bad, that can find little excuses for doing some of the bad stuff that we do.

And that's why, in our tradition, we always say that these boundaries, these hudud, are defined in Revelation. We have an intuitive longing for the good and an intuitive disgust for the evil, but the actual boundaries we can only be sure of when they are supplied by heaven. That's why Mawlana Rumi says, I am the slave of the Qur'an for as long as I draw breath. I am dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen One. Why is that? He's the great ashiq, the great lover, but because of that, because he is one of the saliqeen, somebody who knows and loves the gift from heaven that is supplied by Revelation. Because otherwise, we will always be arguing with ourselves, and human beings will always be arguing about themselves.

What are the boundaries of virtue? What is a good practice? What is a bad practice? Is something a virtue one year, and then a year later, or 50 years later, it becomes a vice? Boundaries are there in Revelation. And in our Revelation, alhamdulillah, because of the generosity of Allah towards this ummah, and his knowledge of how weak people would be in this age, we have been given very clear instructions as to what is correct behavior. In financial matters, what is the legitimate financial transaction? In what we eat and drink, what is the halal and the tayyib, and what is the disagreeable? In the relationship between the sexes, what is the halal and what is the haram? In the forms of our worship, what are the correct boundaries between what is legitimate and what is prohibited? As we travel, as we live with other people, all of the different things, the mu'ammalat in our lives, a whole quarter of the ihya is taken up with that.

We have so much information that is gifted to us by Revelation. And that's the first of these three states, this ilmah, I know that that thing was wrong. I know that I should have done that, because I've been told this in Revelation, and the life of the Chosen One, Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, shows me what's right.

And then you can move on to the halal, and then ultimately to finding the remedy.

O you who have iman, turn to Allah with a nasuh tawbah.

We often hear this one in khutbas. And he goes on to explain, as the mufassirun, the people of tafsir do, what that means. That means sincere. It means from the heart. It means that there's genuinely a fire in the heart that's burning away that bad stuff and energizing us not to do it again and to do good stuff in future. That's the tawbah, nasuhah.

And then he points out that the highest of all degrees, which is to be in a love relationship to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, is the consequence of a righteous tawbah.

Allah loves the people who make tawbah and he loves those who purify themselves.

And then other hadith that emphasizes this process, this symbiosis between tawbah and muhabbah, between turning to Allah and the love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who loves the penitent.

(Hadith)

The one who repents is beloved of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And a whole raft of other hadiths in which he indicates this. And the next chapter that he sets before us is something that often we tend to forget.

Chapter on the Immediate Obligation of Tawbah

An exposition of the fact that tawbah is immediately obligatory. What does that mean? Obviously, one of the things that happens when we know that we've done something wrong is that we figure out how to put it right. And the ego within us often says, well, you're going to see him again this time next year, on the next bayram, you can put things right then.

Or you wake up and, Astaghfirullah, I forgot to pray the first prayer, the dawn prayer. Let me have breakfast first and then I'll sort it out. Or I have forgotten to tell so-and-so to whom I've lent my car that there is a problem with the gears. I'll call them maybe later today. No, you have to do it right away. And the imam has quite a bit to say about this.

Let's move on now and take a look at a particularly interesting and really rather joyful chapter. Much of this book is very realistic about human nature. That we do have this longing for the light. We're not creatures, subterranean creatures, who like the darkness, who like impurity. We long for the light. We know that when we are in a good inward state, we are calm.

We don't like to be stressed and to feel guilty and to live complicated lives because we tell so many lies and get into so many dubious situations. We want simplicity, we want istiqamah, and we know that religion and the sunnah is offering us these things. But very often we make life more complicated for ourselves than it needs to be.

So there's a lot of rigour in this book. But in this next chapter, the imam is going to give us a lot of good news because this chapter is called

Let's see what he says. You should not have a doubt that every sound tawbah is accepted.

Those whose insight comes from the lights, the anwar of the Qur'an, know that every sound heart is entirely acceptable to Allah.

There's some amazing stuff here, he says. And that that sound heart will receive joy in the next world, in the next world, is ready to look with its own eye, its eternal eye, to the face of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And they know that the heart is at root, its basis, at its point of origin, created sound.

Then he indicates the hadith, every child is born according to the fitrah. (Sahih al-Bukhari)

So what this means is that the process of tawbah is actually a process of returning to what we actually are. The point before Sayyidina Adam came into this world.

So what we can do is create in our hearts a kind of garden. The human condition is insha'Allah between two gardens. The garden that was at the beginning of time and the garden that is at the end of time.

And through tawbah we can create a garden for ourselves in our hearts that is in this time. And how do we do that? Through the remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This majlis insha'Allah is an example of that.

He says, salallahu alayhi wasalam, in the famous hadith, when you pass by the gardens of paradise you should enjoy, graze in them. (Hadith)

And what are the gardens of paradise? The messenger of Allah said. And he said (حِلّ الذِّكْرِ - The circles of dhikr). (Hadith - Reported by At-Tirmidhi)

The expression is a general one. It could be circles of sacred knowledge. It could be circles in which the Qur'an is being studied and recited and taught. It could be circles in which people are learning hadith. It could be circles in which people are making dhikr together as is done in this taqwa and in other such blessed places throughout the Muslim world. All of these are حِلّ الذِّكْرِ And they are anticipations in this world.

They are like gardens. And those whose hearts are attached to these places, their natural abode in the next world is جَنَّةُ الْخُلْدِ - The Garden of Eternity. Those who are fidgety and would rather be drinking somewhere, they don't have this calmness in the heart.

And so, what he is saying is that basically the human condition is sound. And that tawbah is the process of self-discovery and is the process of getting back to what we are. Because what is required is not to destroy the self, but to purify it.

"He who purifies it has triumphed."

This piece of metal within ourselves that's got these impurities in it, we need to get the impurities out so that we can be pure and blazing and admirable and pointed out as extraordinary examples of dignified humanity amongst decent people. That needs to be purified and that purification is the beginning and the end of religion.

Everything else is a means to an end. The prayer is a means to that end. The zakat is a means to that end. The hajj is a means to that end.

"Sayyidina Musa a.s. is told establish the prayer for my remembrance."

Everything is for the dhikr of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And these are the circles of dhikr. If you have those circles of dhikr in your societies, in your communities, in your mosques, in your houses, it will be there in your heart. And if it's there in your heart, you will have the state of qalb salim, of which the imam speaks.

And then la mahala, by the generosity of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, your abode will be the gardens of bliss. But to get there, you have to go through these difficult processes of tawbah and setting yourself straight. This great path of suluk then comes up against a second issue.

And this is what Imam Ghazali calls a rukna thani, the second pillar, which is about what we make tawbah from. And this is a complicated issue. What is the kabira and what is the saghira? What is a major sin, what is a minor sin? And we know this hadith in Sahih Muslim:

(Sahih Muslim)

"Beware of the seven deadly sins, al-mubiqat."

And the list is given there, al-shirk, wa-uqooq al-walidayn, and many other things, wa-qawd al-zoor, listed in those hadith. But if you read the commentaries on that hadith, you'll find, well, there's lots of other things that also count as mortal sins. Just because something isn't in the list of seven deadly sins doesn't mean that it's just a saghira, a minor thing.

So the imam spends a long time in this chapter in fact indicating that there are sharia boundaries that define what is a major and a minor sin. There are also more subtle things to do with intention and the extent of one's knowledge, that you can do something that seems to be a small sin with such ugliness in your heart that it becomes something for which the five daily prayers alone will not atone. And similarly, you can do something that seems to be something really ugly, but in fact, because your intention was otherwise, even though those who are watching you do it might have realised that, is not as bad as the small thing that you were doing.

And that's one basic reason why the ulama urge us never to blame people, because you don't really know what intentions they are making. You can look at your own self. You can have muhasabah of yourself.

Call yourselves to account before Allah calls you to account.

You can have some clear indication of what your niyyah, what your intention is like. You can't really judge somebody else's intention. (التَّقْوَى هَاهُنَا - Piety is in the heart).

And that's why, when you see yourself doing something bad, you should be tough on yourself. And you should be too preoccupied with your own process of tawbah and sorting yourself out, than being obsessed with all of the other stuff that's happening in the street. Firstly, because you can't sort out those things anyway, nine times out of ten.

And secondly, because you don't really have the ability to look into those people's hearts and to see their inward states. But you can have some awareness of your own state. Sort yourself out, sort yourself out, and then you'll find that society starts to become better.

Of course, you begin with yourself, and then your family, and then your neighbourhood, and then something larger. But this, again, is a point that the Imam is making that's very relevant to our situation today. All too often, Muslim communities are full of blame.

Very often, a khutbah can seem to be full of blame. These people are bad, these people are bad, this country is bad, this government is bad. Just blame, blame, attacking people.

That's not the way of the great awliya and the great ulama of Islam. Theirs is the way of malama, of bringing blame upon themselves.

Chapter on What Makes a Small Sin Into a Great Sin

Know that a little sin can become a great sin for certain reasons. One of them is to insist on that sin and to do it constantly. In other words, if it's just a small thing, you're doing it badly, you constantly insist on it and you're kind of not worried about it, then it can become a major sin.

And that's why it says, this is a common proverb, that there is no small sin that is done constantly and there is no great sin that is followed by istighfar. In other words, if you truly say istighfar, then it's done away with.

The last two sections of the book are about the completion of tawbah, the preconditions of tawbah, and how to keep on with one's resolution to the end of one's life.

Because very often the problem we have is that we do something, we know it's a dirty thing to do, then we go back to it, and we go back to it, and go back to it. Recidivism in English. And this is indicated in the Qur'an.

He is forgiving towards those who constantly return. And it's said that this refers to those who are returning to the same sins. So you can see that this is the final section in this book on tawbah.

He's explained the good news that if you do it correctly, the sin is wiped away. But he's also explaining how we can keep up. Once we've taken the step up on the staircase, how can we stop going down again? How can we continue to progress until we really make progress?

Well, his basic message here is that just as the istiqamah, the path that goes straight, is the easiest path because it's the quickest path back to the watan, back to the homeland. Similarly, the life that we discover once we've healed ourselves, or, to put it more accurately, once Allah has healed us of one of the ugly things that we have done, is a rediscovery of what we really are, of the fitrah, of what is true and good and beautiful within us.

That it's all about taking joy in being that dignified and happy human being that Allah has created you to be. And that's why the Qur'an says of the awliya, of the saints:

"There is no fear upon them, neither shall they grieve."

They're always cheerful. If you have sat with the great awliya, the great saliheen of Islam, they're the ones who are telling the jokes, they're the ones who are relaxed, they're the ones who are not concerned with how they come across. They're always relaxed.

Why? Because they're in this normal fitri condition of the human creature. And part of the genius of the sunnah of the chosen one, (صلى الله عليه وسلم), is that it shows us an extraordinarily natural,

spontaneous, organic, normal way in which to live. So far removed from the artificial, neon-lit, entertainment-based culture of the modern world that creates so many psychic disturbances within us.

This is the relaxed Islam of the fitrah. And again, very far from the kind of, if you like, modern fundamentalist types of Islam the iblees type of Islam that only looks at the outward and makes disastrous judgements on that basis. Because that's just another form of agitation and anger in the heart.

No, the real Islam, which is the sunnah of the inward as well as the outward, the batin as well as the zahir, produces a human being who's actually relaxed, who's actually at ease. He's at ease with others because he's at ease with himself. He knows what it is to be makhluk, to be a creature.

He knows that he's only in this world for a few short decades, and he's fine with that. He knows what it is to be a man. He knows what it is to be a woman. He knows what it is to sin. He knows his Lord's generosity. And he can relax.

"By remembering Allah, hearts are made calm."

So much in the modern world is about a quest for calm, to decompress, to avoid stress, to find various forms of alternative therapy, whether it be aromatherapy or yoga or whatever it might be. Everybody's looking for that calm.

The Qur'an explains exactly what it is. (بِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ الْقُلُوبُ - By remembering Allah, hearts are made calm). And when we are in that state, then we start to recall something of our true vocation.

What does Mawlana Rumi say?

We were the companions of the spheres. We were the friends of the angels. Let us go there again, friends, to our country. مقرنا That is our city. That's where we belong. We come from, in our روح the thing that is deepest within us from (مَنَازِلِ صَيْتِ رَبِّكِ - our abode is the divine glory).

When we turn within, when we get rid of these things that seem so big, but in fact are so feeble, these desires, when we leave them behind, when we make talbah from them, when we are indifferent to them, then we discover the extraordinary sanctity and genius of the human condition. And this is achieved through the virtue of humility. Remember the extraordinary humility of Qaymi Baba here in Sarajevo, horrified by the fact that Allah had apparently honored him with this miracle.

And very often we find that in their outward greatness and glory, human beings are often gifted with something that reminds them of their fragility and their frailty. The story of Sayyiduna Sulayman, who had an unequaled mulk or kingdom, Allah suddenly caused him to die and he was dead on his throne for some time and then came back to life again just to remind him of how all of our lives and all of our souls are completely subject to the divine will.

However pleased we might be with ourselves, making plans for 20 years in the future, making plans for marriage, for children, for grandchildren, Allah can take our souls just in an instant. We can be diagnosed with cancer, we can go underneath a bus, our hearts can stop. Allah is qadir ala dhalik, he is capable of doing that. Remembering those things helps to crush us a little bit, to bring us down and then to bring us back to this point of the fitra where we can actually relax.

If you are at this basic, simple human level, then you can relax. It's only when you try to be like Fir'aun, when you say, ana rabbukumul a'la, I am your greatest lord, that you become agitated. But when you are humble and mosaic, then extraordinary things can be done through you.

Imam al-Ghazali, rahmatullahi alayhi, this extraordinary person who himself went through processes of tawbah, two great moments of crisis in his life that would have crushed ordinary individuals. His first process of tawbah, when he was teaching to hundreds of the greatest students in the Islamic world and he starts to doubt the basis of his belief and he has to leave. And then the second of his processes of tawbah is when he starts to doubt his own intentions.

Here I have all these students, I am Hodja tul Islam, I am this extraordinary glorified person sitting high on the minbar, everybody's pointing to me and saying, Hodja tul Islam, but what is going on in my heart? Am I really a ta'ib? Am I really a penitent person? Am I guiding other people to jannah and myself? My destiny is jahannam, the other place. And then the fire of tawbah overmastered his heart and he became, in the famous incident, unable to speak. In the middle of one of his lectures on theology, he couldn't say another word because of this contradiction.

The circuits of his soul had fused and he could no longer speak. And so he leaves in silence the consternation of his students and he goes out for ten years seeking truth as a darwish and he returns to find the true Islam. And what is the true Islam? It's not some new Islam.

It's the Islam of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, but not just part of the Qur'an and part of the Sunnah. And not just some angry understanding of the superficial commandment, but the depths of it, the beauty of it, which come from where? From the human heart, from the human soul. So the message of the Imam in his life, not just in his book, but in his life, is tawbah is the basis of the religion.

And it's not just about turning from sin to virtue. It's about turning from an outward superficial regard to an inward understanding of the meaning. He was not just preaching to us. He was living in his own life the reality of tawbah. The fires of tawbah and penitence burned him up and made him into this great Imam so that 900 years later, we are reading his book here in Sarajevo.

So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us of the ta'ibin, to make us people of tawbah, and to give us a tawbah nasuhah, and to make us people whose tawbahs are accepted to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Closing Dua

O Allah, accept from us; indeed, You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. And turn to us in forgiveness, our Master; indeed, You are the Accepting of repentance, the Most Merciful.

O Allah, we are Your servants, the children of Your male servants, and the children of Your female servants. Your judgment upon us is inevitable; Your decree concerning us is just. We ask You by every name that belongs to You, which You named Yourself, or revealed in Your Book, or taught to any of Your creation, or kept exclusively to Yourself in the knowledge of the unseen, to make the Magnificent Quran the spring of our hearts, the remover of our sorrows, the reliever of our worries and griefs, and to make life an increase for us in every good, and to make death a rest for us from every evil, by Your mercy, O Most Merciful of the merciful.

May Allah send blessings upon our master, our patron, and our beloved Muhammad, and upon his family and companions, and may He grant them peace. And the last of our call is, "All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds."