Repentance Before Ḥajj: Even Those Not Written to Perform It Can Take Part

Occasion: Transcription of a khatira delivered on 6 August 2018 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

These days people are busy with the works of Ḥajj, those whom Allah, the Most High, has chosen to visit His House. And we ask Allah, mighty and majestic, to complete the affair of every longing person, to bring the pilgrims to 'Arafāt, and to establish their faith for them.

The First Thing Asked of the Pilgrim

There are deeds asked of pilgrims before they go to Ḥajj, and the first of these deeds is repentance to Allah, glorified and exalted. The question remains: if we are not among those for whom Allah has written a visit to His House this year, can we share with the pilgrims in some of their deeds? Do we share with them, for example, in the matter of repentance?

Repentance is asked of the pilgrim before he begins a new page of his life. For we say that whoever performs Ḥajj to the House of Allah and does not engage in obscenity or wrongdoing returns from his Ḥajj like the day his mother bore him^[1], so he returns another person and a new creation, turning the page completely and opening a white page in his life. So if this is what is hoped for him there, we ask him from the beginning: Do not go while you are stained; you must purify yourself first before you set out to the House of Allah, the Most High. So we ask him to repent to the Lord of the worlds.

This repentance is like an announcement from him to Allah, glorified is He: I am free of every wrong I was practicing before I set out to Your House. He offers it as a pledge and a prelude to his steps toward the House of the Lord of the worlds. Then when he reaches the House of Allah and finds himself before these rites, performing them as the Lord of the worlds commanded him and as Muhammad ﷺ guided him, he deserves that Allah forgive his sin and return him with abundant reward, his sin forgiven, with abundant honor, by the leave of the Lord of the worlds.

The One Whom an Excuse Held Back

This is a part shared among all people. But let us remind ourselves at the outset that whoever was unable to perform Ḥajj, Allah, the Most High, writes for him the reward of the Ḥajj journeys if the intention is present in him: I wish I could go, but something stood between me and that. We then recall what the Prophet ﷺ told his Companions, that in Madīnah, behind them, there are people who did not take a journey nor cross a valley except that Allah wrote for them reward like what was written for them. They asked: How, O Messenger of Allah? We are present on the ground, working and moving, so how are they, being there, not having moved? The Prophet ﷺ answered that an excuse held them back.^[2]

So if the excuse is present together with the intention and the will, then Allah, the Most High, writes for the one who was unable the reward of the one who did, and that is from the favor of Allah, blessed and exalted, and His great reward. So whoever wanted to perform Ḥajj and was unable to reach the Sacred House, at the very least let him offer before his Lord the preludes that the pilgrims perform. The first of them is that we repent to Allah, glorified and exalted.

The Example of Buying a House

You should not begin one of your new life projects, such as buying a house, and here under the law you have to settle your debts, or at least not be burdened with debts that affect paying the price of the house. You go to apply to buy a house, and they check the credit and say to you: You pay monthly for the car such and such, and for such and such, and you have a list on its own that your salary can scarcely cover, so how do you come to take from us? This is the logic of human beings in what they deal with. So how do I go to Allah, glorified is He, to His House, mighty and majestic, while I am stained with many sins that stand between me and the purity of my soul and the cleanness of my inner self?

Sin is a barrier between the heart and responding. So whoever removes this barrier is fit to receive from Allah the blessings of this place and what Allah, mighty and majestic, gives to the pilgrims.

Water in an Open Hand

Imagine that the Lord of the worlds gives to you and you have no vessel. Imagine that someone pours water into your hand while it is open; can you hold it? The water comes down and falls; it has no place. You must close your hand, and if you close it, you hold water to the measure of your hands. And repentance is like a purification of this heart, so that it turns into a great vessel that takes in from Allah, the Most High, and from His giving, mighty and majestic, what qualifies it to be a new creation, whose sin is forgiven and who turns into a new person and being.

Do Not Let Sins Make You Despair

We speak of repentance as an individual repentance that Allah, glorified is He, commands, and the Prophet ﷺ tells us that Allah, the Most High, rejoices at the repentance of His servant.^[3] And here Satan enters to say to a person: Beware of thinking about the matter of repentance. Why? Because you have sinned a great many sins, and one like you in this condition should not stand before Allah, so what will you say to Him? Be ashamed of yourself, and stay here with the homeless; do not try. Satan wants to close that door.

But the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ is that Allah rejoices at the repentance of His servant. This servant who repents, repents from what? From disobedience or from obedience? He repents from disobedience. Do you imagine that Allah, glorified is He, rejoices at a servant who repents, meaning that he made a mistake? If he had made a mistake and then returned to Allah, the Lord of Might, glorified, high in His majesty, rejoices in him.

The Repentance of the Individual and the Repentance of Society

And the Lord of Might, glorified is He, tells us in His words: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا تُوبُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ تَوْبَةً نَّصُوحًا﴾ (O you who have believed, repent to Allah with sincere repentance).^[4] Whenever I pass by this verse I want to connect it with the words of Allah, mighty and majestic: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًا﴾ (O you who have believed, protect yourselves and your families from a Fire).^[5] The address here is a collective address, not an individual obligation. There is an individual repentance with which the servant is charged for his own sins and his own disobedience, but there is a repentance of society. And what is the meaning of the repentance of society? That it is said: Repent, all of you together, to Allah with a sincere repentance, and then comes the hope that Allah will expiate for them, not only for each one on his own.

And what is this matter of the repentance of society? Society in its origin is a small family. So if we were accustomed at home to saying a bad word and all of us kept returning to it, the collective address here is: Repent to Allah, all of you hold your tongues from saying an obscene thing. And if we were accustomed to seeing sights that do not accord with our faith, then please close the outlets through which that evil comes. And if we were accustomed to committing a disobedience shared among us as members of a family, then please stop this disobedience.

Then we move on to the outside society. There are societies in which bribery spreads, so you do not complete a matter, nor settle an interest, nor do anything except with a bribe, a bribe, a bribe. Here the collective address comes, because these are causes of the destruction of such societies.

We Share with the Pilgrims in Repentance

And once again, so as not to take too long with you, may Allah preserve you: among the preludes before Ḥajj for these pilgrims is the matter of repentance. So do we share with them in this matter? Yes, we share with them in it, so we want to say to Allah, glorified and exalted, on this blessed night: O Allah, we have repented to You. But this repentance should not be a word; rather it should be resolve, action and execution, will and strength through which you can abstain from a disobedience that you know best, while your Lord has greater knowledge of what is before you.

O Allah, we ask You to accept our repentance, to have mercy on our weakness, to mend our brokenness, and to prepare for us right guidance in our affair.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The meaning of a ḥadīth reported by al-Bukhārī and Muslim from Abū Hurayra, may Allah be pleased with him: «مَن حجَّ فلم يرفُثْ ولم يفسُقْ رجع كيوم ولدته أمُّه»; the speaker related it by meaning. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Reported by al-Bukhārī from the ḥadīth of Anas, may Allah be pleased with him, concerning the expedition of Tabūk, in similar wording, in which occurs "an excuse held them back," and Muslim reported something similar from the ḥadīth of Jābir, may Allah be pleased with him, in which occurs "except that they shared with you in the reward"; the speaker related it by meaning. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The meaning of an agreed-upon ḥadīth from Anas and Ibn Mas'ūd, may Allah be pleased with them both, on Allah's rejoicing at the repentance of His servant, related by the speaker by meaning. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat at-Taḥrīm, verse 8. The speaker mentioned the verse up to His words "sincere repentance" and moved on to connect it with what follows it in speech that was not clear in the transcript. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: Sūrat at-Taḥrīm, verse 6. This verse occurred in his speech abbreviated as we have recorded it.