Pardoning Others

As-salamu `alaykum wa rahmatullah

Tarbiyyah Focus :-

Learning to forgive and pardon others always brings more benefit to one’s self than it does to others. It creates an atmosphere of relaxation, tranquility and ease in your heart and you learn to get on with the more important things of your life. Bearing grudges and constantly looking to others, remembering all the ills and wrongs that people have committed against you will forever weigh you down, depress you, anchor you in unhappiness and make you a very horrible person! So as is mentioned frequently in the Qur’an and Sunnah, forgive and overlook the faults of others.

Without a doubt however, there will be times when you’ll need to stand up and rectify the wrong, because a Muslim should be strong and never allow him/herself to be oppressed, harmed or trodden on etc, but at the end of the day, when all is resolved, forgiveness and pardoning is the way to go. As part of  a lifelong tarbiyyah, we should learn to create a distance between the actions of others and their effect on us. Unfortunately, it is the case that at times, there are people (whether they’re in authority, are laymen, general public or even your friends) who will wrong you, criticise you, harm you, wish you ill, stand against you, betray you etc, but these are oft-occuring matters of this world which you can’t run away from. Instead, the best thing you can do is build yourself up and attain the tarbiyyah to help you best deal with such occurences, and lessen their effect on you.

Forgive, and although you don’t always have to forget (though that would be good), take a lesson and then cleanse your heart from malice, all the while hoping for the Help of Allah and His reward. To draw this home, I’ve translated parts of a small chapter from Ibn Muflih’s book, al-Adab al-Shar’iyyah on pardoning those who oppress and wrong others (based on the incident of Imam Ahmad’s trial and persecution):

Salih, the son of Imam Ahmad, relates that he went to his father and said,

‘I’ve heard that a man came to Fadhl al-Anmati and said to him, “If I do not help and support you, will you forgive me?” Al-Fadhl said to him, ‘I will never forgive anyone (who does that).” My father then smiled and remained silent.

After a few days, he said to me, ‘I came across this verse: “So whoever forgives and rectifies, then his reward is upon Allah…” [al-Shura: 40] and I looked to its tafsir (explanation); it was as Hashim ibn al-Qasim narrated to me from al-Mubarak from al-Hasan that he said:

‘When all the nations kneel before the Lord of the Worlds on the Day of Judgement, and it is proclaimed “Let all those whose reward is upon Allah, rise up” none shall get up except those who used to forgive others in the world.’

My father then said, ‘So I have forgiven those who’ve passed away for their beating me.’ Then he began to say, ‘And how can it be that a man is punished by Allah because of another man?’

In the report of al-Marwadi is the statement of al-Sha’bi: ‘If you forgive him once (the one who wronged you), then you shall attain twice the reward.’

Al-Hasan al-Basri: ‘The best of a believer’s characteristics is forgiving and pardoning.’

And ‘Umar made the amazing statement: ‘I have forgiven all the people.’

- Al-Adab al-Shar’iyyah by Ibn Muflih al-Hanbali [vol 1, pg. 85-86]