The harder turning [42:40]

Today’s verse is from Chapter 42 where Allah [swt] gives a wronged person the right to defend their rights [in proportion to the harm done]. 

وَجَزَاء سَيِّئَةٍ سَيِّئَةٌ مِّثْلُهَا فَمَنْ عَفَا وَأَصْلَحَ فَأَجْرُهُ عَلَى اللَّهِ إِنَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ الظَّالِمِينَ 

[42:40] And the recompense of evil is punishment like it, but whoever forgives and amends, he shall have his reward from Allah; surely He does not love the unjust.

The verse however says that if the person who is wronged chooses [this is very important and we will talk about it again inshallah] to a. forgive and b. make amends then his reward lies with Allah [swt] 

We have been talking about Tawba, repentance to Allah [swt] to make things right between our Creator and ourselves. Now we turn to this verse which talks about making thigs right between other human beings and ourselves.

We briefly discussed Imam Ali[as]’s conditions of Tawba from Nahj al-Balagha (Saying #417). The third condition of Tawba that he laid out was: to return to creatures their rights, so that you meet God in a state where no one has a claim against you. 

This condition appears in the middle of the list, after the interior work of remorse and resolution, but before the obligations to the Creator are fully addressed. The Imam [as] appears to be saying: your account with Allah cannot be settled while your account with people remains open. In other words we cannot mend our vertical relationship with Him until we mend our horizontal relationships with other human beings. These are not separate spiritual tasks. They are two dimensions of one reality.

It is [far] easier to repent to Allah than to a human being. Allah is Perfect, All-Knowing, All-Forgiving and He does not answer back!! When we bring our remorse to Him, we can do so in the privacy of our own hearts, in the quiet of the night, in the language of Dua. There is remorse but no risk of rejection, no ego threatened [since He already knows the yuk that may be hiding]. 

When we go to a human being we have wronged, we are much more vulnerable. Firstly, it takes us a lot of inner work to accept that we have hurt someone and ask for forgiveness. And when we do, we may find that the other person may not be ready to receive us. They may be hurt in ways we underestimated. They may respond with anger, or silence, or a grief that makes us feel the full weight of what we did. On top of all this, we are so tempted to find ways in which we were not entirely to blame – how the other person should share some of the blame. Our ego wants to protect itself by minimizing, justifying, deflecting, or wanting to wait for the other person to meet us halfway first.

It is so so hard, right?

Here’s the thing: spiritual maturity involves apologising for your part regardless of the other person’s actions. Our faith teaches us one thing clearly: we are fully and only responsible for what we do. What the others do is really none of our spiritual business. It is important that verse tells us that for the one who pardons and makes reconciliation, their reward is with Allah. Thankfully it is not conditional on the other person’s response. Not dependent on being received graciously. The act itself when done with sincerity, is what carries weight before Him.

A meaningful apology 

There are many ways to apologise that do not actually function as apologies. In fact there are soo many ways to apologize badly. Being vague (“I’m sorry if you were hurt”). Counterattacking (“But you also did...”). Using the word “but” at all, which negates everything before it. These are the ego’s ways of pretending to apologize while protecting itself from the full cost of it.

What makes an apology real? Three things, each requiring genuine interior work:

1.     Remorse and empathy. Before we can apologise meaningfully, we need to truly understand how we affected the other person. This requires us to set aside our own self-protection long enough to feel what they felt. When we are genuinely sorry for the pain we caused [not just sorry about the consequences for ourselves] it shows. They can tell. The Imam [as]’s first condition of tawbah which is remorse applies here just as much as it does in our relationship with Allah.
2.     Taking responsibility. Not partial responsibility. Not responsibility with an asterisk. Owning our part in the harm caused, without reaching for the other person’s behaviour to cushion our accountability. This is the courage required of ‘those who pardon and make reconciliation’, it takes more strength to absorb than to retaliate.
3.     Repair, remedy, and restitution. An apology without a repair attempt is incomplete. At minimum: a sincere commitment not to cause the same harm again is needed. In cases of deep breaches including broken trust, infidelity, sustained patterns of harm, abuse, financial wrong or other such issues, a concrete plan of change is needed to make the apology meaningful. 

Also, the timetable of healing belongs to the hurt person. It is very challenging to make ourselves vulnerable by admitting fault and apologizing and then finding that the hurt party is not ready to forgive.  We need to remind ourselves that we are dealing with imperfect humans not the All Forgiving. Their hurt may still be raw and to an extent that we have not appreciated. We cannot demand forgiveness. Just because we have done the inner work does not mean that we have the right to be forgiven. We can only make best efforts and pray for Allah [swt] to soften their hearts towards us. A truly remorseful person accepts this without resentment. We can also pray that the Al-Tawwab accepts our efforts at making amends. 

Challenging stuff right? Makes us so much more grateful that Allah [swt] accepts clumsy efforts and doesn’t hold on to grudges. 

Imam Zayn al-‘Abidin (as), in Dua at-Tawbah (Dua #31, Sahifa Sajjadiyya), asks Allah: “compensate the owners of rights for them, and put down their burden from me, and lighten their weight from me.”

Reflections:

• Is there someone I have wronged, whose right I am yet to return? What is one concrete step I could take, even a small one, this week?
• Is there an apology I have been giving that is a clumsy apology and one that protects my ego rather than genuinely reaching the other person? Do I now understand why my “apologies” were not working?

Here are some blogs on the subject of apologies

The top 10 worst things to say to your loved ones

https://www.marziahassan.org/blog/The%20top%2010%20worst%20things%20to%20say%20to%20your%20loved%20ones

The beginners guide to bad apologies(DW# 771 )

https://www.marziahassan.org/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-bad-apologies

Alternatives to the generic apology(DW# 776 )

https://www.marziahassan.org/blog/alternatives-to-the-generic-apology

Another alternative to the generic apology (DW# 777)

https://www.marziahassan.org/blog/another-alternative-to-the-generic-apology

 PS: Did you know that this content is also available [in a bit more depth] as a podcast?

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/loving-and-living-the-quran/id1039955011