Al-Qasas · Makki · ayah 16 of 88

Al-Qasas 28:16

قَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّى ظَلَمْتُ نَفْسِى فَٱغْفِرْ لِى فَغَفَرَ لَهُۥٓ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلْغَفُورُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ

“He said, "My Lord, indeed I have wronged myself, so forgive me," and He forgave him. Indeed, He is the Forgiving, the Merciful.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Musa owns the wrong in one plain sentence and asks only for forgiveness; it is granted at once, because that is who his Lord is.

A reflection

Forgiven before the ink is dry

Read the ayah slowly and notice its speed. Musa asks: fa-ghfir lī, so forgive me. The very next words are fa-ghafara lah, so He forgave him. The same little fa that joined the blow to the death in the previous ayah now joins the plea to the pardon. One commentator says that fa signals cause: He forgave him because he asked.

Now think about how forgiveness works among us. Picture a piano teacher in her seventies. A careless pupil knocks her late husband's brass metronome off the piano. It cracks on the floor. The boy apologises at once, red-faced. She says, 'It's fine.' It is not fine. For a week her lessons are polite and cold. Her forgiveness has to fight through her hurt, her memory, and a little wounded pride.

That is what even generous human forgiveness usually looks like. It is slow because something in us was injured. Our ego was damaged, and it needs time before it lets go.

Allah is not like that. In a hadith He relates, He tells His servants that they will never be able to harm Him. He also says: 'You sin by night and day, and I forgive all sins, so ask My forgiveness and I will forgive you' (Sahih Muslim). No sin dents Him. No apology flatters Him. There is no wound to heal before He can pardon. So His forgiveness can arrive in the same breath as the request.

Then comes His own description: innahu huwa al-ghafūru al-raḥīm: 'truly He, He alone, is the Forgiving, the Merciful'. One commentator reads the emphasis as 'the One who goes to the furthest extent in forgiving and showing mercy'.

This is what shrinks the ego. We hold grudges because we think our hurt matters so much. Before the One no sin can touch, we stand as people who needed pardon, not people owed apologies. Humility begins exactly there.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.