“You love to pardon…”

How many opportunities are we given to start over? To truly start over, with a clean slate wiped of our mistakes and misdeeds, yet with all the good we did still in tact?

During the last ten nights of Ramadan, we make a truly profound supplication:

اللهم انك عفو تحب العفو فاعف عني 

O Allah, You are the Pardoner, You love to pardon, so pardon me

We often focus on the act of the pardoning: that if we are accepted, then Allah - who is Al’Afuw, THE Pardoner - completely erases our mistakes and we are not held to account for them. We can start again.

But I wanted to focus on the fact that He LOVES to pardon. When we apologize to someone, in rare instances we may be able to start our relationship over again. But that would only happen once or twice. Moreover, no one really enjoys the act of pardoning. It is done begrudgingly, or with a warning that this is the last time.

Allah is far above His creation. He is not only the Pardoner; He LOVES to pardon. He is not pardoning just out of a promise to fulfill. He is telling us that He LOVES this. He LOVES to erase your sins. He LOVES to give you a chance to start over and over and over. He LOVES wiping your slate of bad deeds clean, while not only keeping your slate of good deeds as they are, but increasing them due to you asking for pardon. Asking for pardon erases your bad while increasing your good. This can only come from al-’Afuw, who loves to pardon.

And in reality, when we go to apologize to a human being, rarely is the response an acceptance of the apology and restarting the relationship. There is something there that never really goes away. Past mistakes come up in future arguments because they are still there. 

But with Allah, He loves to give you that chance for renewal. What is on us is the sincere ask and intention to do better. He welcomes you with open arms and as long as you want to start over, He accepts. He believes in you, so how can we not believe in ourselves?

May we supplicate intensely with the utmost hope these last few nights, with the knowledge that He loves to pardon.