Fake Istighfar - Nouman Ali Khan
There is the artificial kind of seeking forgiveness:
astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah...
which for some people is so artificial.
Like Ali (رضي الله عنه) saw somebody doing it
and said to him, "Your istighfar needs istighfar."
Cause that just, it's just rolling off your tongue.
There are something that keep you and me
from seeking Allah's forgiveness.
It has to do with expectation.
Some people, deep in their mind,
have internalized that,
"I have done way too much messed-up stuff."
"Allah probably doesn't like me very much."
Some people even go as far as to say,
"I've heard them say, 'Allah hates me.'"
"Allah hates me."
"Allah doesn't like me."
"Allah is angry with me, I've done a lot of bad things."
"I knew Allah doesn't want me to do this."
"This is I did it anyway
and I did it over and over and over again."
"So I'm basically off of Allah's good books."
"My prayers don't mean it."
And when people internalize that,
you know what they do?
"I'm a bad person, could you make dua for me?
Cause I'm disqualified already."
"So you need to make dua for me
because I'm hoping at least Allah will listen to you."
"Maybe I have a chance.
Cause there's no way Allah will listen to me."
"You seem to have a much better connection
with Allah than I do."
Let me take you back. Short reminder.
Who was the offer made to by Nuh (عليه السلام)?
Nuh (عليه السلام) was making this offer
to one of the rebellious nations on earth.
Continuously rebellious.
And he said, "If you can just come ask forgiveness.
Not only will Allah give you forgiveness,
He'll open up the world for you."
In other words, you don't get to write yourself off.
You don't get to say about yourself, "I'm too far gone."
Seeking forgiveness is not for you,
maybe for somebody else.
"But I'm a lost case."
"I'm a terminal case."
"I'm beyond hope."
"I'm already done for."
"If anything, my mom will make dua for me."
"I'll just won't make dua for me."
And this is when shaitan comes.
Shaitan uses that.
When shaitan...
he takes advantage of the hopelessness of people,
and that's one of the doors to shrik.
You know that? One of the doors to shrik.
Why? Because then religions come.
False religions come that say,
"You're too messed up, let Jesus forgive you."
"You be good to Jesus, he'll take care of God for you."
"He'll be in between,
or get place somebody else in between."
"This saint, go to his grave."
"Go ask him, be good to him,
put some chocolate in front of his grave,
and he'll ask Allah to take care of your problems."
"Because you're too messed up.
You can't deal with Allah, He's too angry with you."
"He however was in Allah's good book,
so you go through him."
This how shrik opens up.
In other words,
the essence of our direct connection with Allah,
which is what Iman is,
which is what tauhid is,
which is what لآإِلَهَ إِلاَّ الله is.
The essence of it is you get to ask Allah directly
for what you need.
And I'm telling you, I'm reminding myself,
the thing we need the most
because it will take care all of our needs
is seeking forgiveness.
Now, there is a seeking forgiveness by the tongue,
and there is a seeking forgiveness by the heart.
Human beings tend to be defensive.
If I criticize you for something,
"Hey, I saw you said that. Why did you say that?"
"I didn't mean it like that!"
"You don't understand what I was going through!"
"Excuse me, you don't even understand the whole story!"
"Hey, I notice that you did this."
You get defensive immediately.
(QS. 75:14-15) بَلِ الۡاِنۡسَانُ عَلٰى نَفۡسِهٖ بَصِيۡرَةٌ ۙ‏ وَّلَوۡ اَلۡقٰى مَعَاذِيۡرَهٗؕ
"Human beings have good view of themselves,
but they make lots of excuses."
They keep throwing excuses.
If you're going to seek Allah's forgiveness,
you have to find a time.
It doesn't matter if you don't know Arabic,
and you only know Punjabi,
and you only know Bangla,
or Bahasa, or English, or Urdu.
It doesn't matter.
You speak to Allah,
and you genuinely admit to Him
what you've done wrong, and don't make excuses.
It's really hard to do that.
Because even when you stand in the mirror,
you lie to yourself.
You tell you, "I'm not that bad."
"I have reasons for what I did."
"I have justification. I've been through a lot."
But when you're going to come in front of Allah,
you have to forget about justifying,
because all of your justifications,
He knows them already.
He knew what you were going through.
He knew it was a tough time.
He knew this was overwhelming you,
that was overwhelming you.
"I was under a lot of stress ya Rabb, that's why I drank."
Don't give Him the reasons.
He knows your reasons better than you do.
You need to come to Him openly,
without any filters,
without any hesitation,
with no guard,
with no shame.
You're embarrassed to even admit this to anyone
until you completely openly admit to Allah
how messed up you've been
and how you've messed up.
Completely openly.
And as you do it, let me tell you,
as you start verbalizing those things,
I would be hard-pressed to think
tears are not going to roll down your eyes.
It's impossible for a human being to open up
so vulnerable before Allah, before anyone,
and especially Allah, to open up so much,
and then not believe
not have tears roll down their eyes,
because it's a moment of weakness.
To the world, you have to show yourself as strong,
and confident, and you're just fine.
Everybody sees you and thinks everything's okay.
But the only one who gets to know nothing is okay,
there is a lot of problems, is Allah.
You have to open up to Him openly,
and then you're going to be in a position
to ask for forgiveness.
Then you get to beg in sajdah,
then it turns into something else.
It's not just,
"Astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah, astaghfirullah..."
It's a real conversation with Allah.
It's a real confession with Allah (عز و جل).
It's a powerful powerful thing.
Try it for yourself.
You have to find alone time alone to yourself.
You have to make sure nobody else is listening.
You can't even do it in the middle of the night.
You get up from the bed,
the wife is still in bed,
you sit on the side of the bed,
"Ya Allah forgive me," and she's listening.
You can't do that.
Be in the car by yourself, doesn't matter.
Be somewhere alone.
This is just your time with Allah.
Your alone time with Allah.
And verbalize it, hear yourself say it.
There's one thing to just whisper it,
and if you're just going to memorize a bunch of duas
in Arabic, and you don't even know what they mean,
and just recite them.
(MUMBLING DUAS)
And if you're going to keep doing that,
and those duas are beautiful, they're powerful,
but if your heart isn't speaking them,
your tongue is speaking them,
then you're not seeking istighfar yet.
May Allah reward you for the dhikr that you're doing,
for behalf that you're reciting,
but that's not istighfar.
Istighfar is something else.
And when these tears come down,
when this starts opening up, then the sky opens up.