The Motivation to Let Go [24:22]

We started our conversation about forgiveness yesterday by understanding the cost of holding on to grudges. Today Inshallah let us explore the reasons why it is so challenging to forgive and finding the motivation to take on this challenging journey. 

Our reflection for today is from the last part of the verse from Sura Nur where Allah [swt] says: 

وَلْيَعْفُوا وَلْيَصْفَحُوا أَلَا تُحِبُّونَ أَن يَغْفِرَ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ وَاللَّهُ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ 

[24:22] and they should pardon and turn away. Do you not love that Allah should forgive you? And Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Before we address the motivation embedded in this verse, let us acknowledge again that forgiveness is challenging. The Quran itself calls forgiveness an act of courage. 

Why is it so challenging?

The self feels it as a threat to its dignity. When someone wrongs us, our sense of self, our worth, our standing, our narrative about who we are takes a hit. Holding the grievance becomes a way of reasserting that what happened mattered, that we mattered. To forgive can feel, at the level of the nafs, like agreeing that it didn't. The ego resists this. 

We confuse forgiveness with condoning. If I release this, am I saying it was acceptable? Am I making myself vulnerable to being hurt again? The heart protects itself by holding the record. By reminding ourselves that what was done was not okay. 

Resentment gives us something. This is the uncomfortable truth. Grievance provides a kind of energy: a story that explains our pain, a clear moral structure where we are right and they are wrong, sometimes even a community of sympathy. Psychologists note that people often resist forgiveness because the grievance has become part of their victim identity. To release it is to lose something, even if what you're losing was hurting you.

The wound keeps getting re-triggered. Forgiveness is not one decision made once. Every time the memory surfaces the injury feels fresh again and the process has to begin again. This is exhausting, and many people interpret the returning feeling as evidence that they haven't truly forgiven, which discourages them from trying.

Justice feels incomplete. There is something in the human heart and Islam fully validates this: we want wrongs to be acknowledged and set right. When the other person hasn't apologized, hasn't been held accountable, appears to have suffered no consequences, forgiveness can feel like the injustice is being compounded rather than resolved. Why should I do the inner work when they are the one who caused harm? 

So let us repeat. You absolutely do not HAVE to. 

The Quran's invitation is motivational rather than merely moral. It does not say you should forgive and leave it there. It asks a question: "Would you not like that Allah should forgive you?"

It appeals to what we actually want. If we want Allah [swt] to treat us with Mercy instead of Justice, then forgiving others is the key. 

And if we are honest with ourselves and even a little self-aware about the gap between our intentions and our actions, we are aware of the many times we have returned to the same failures, we have stood before Allah asking for what we have not fully earned. When we realise this, then this question Allah [swt] asks us lands differently. We desperately want and need His forgiveness. We count on it. We have been asking for it every night of this month.

There is also an asymmetry worth discussing. When we think of our own wrongdoing, we tend to focus on our intentions, how we meant well, we were struggling, circumstances were difficult etc etc. When we think of what others did to us, we judge by their actions and rarely extend the same generous reading about their intentions or circumstances. 

In other words, we judge ourselves by our intentions when we fall short and others by their actions when they fall short. The Quran appears to be redirecting this human tendency telling us to extend to others the interpretive mercy we apply so readily to ourselves.

Imam Ali (as), in his letter of counsel to Malik al-Ashtar in Nahj al-Balagha (Letter 53), instructs him to fill his heart with mercy toward those under his authority and to grant them the same pardon he hopes Allah will grant him. This is far more than political counsel. It is a spiritual law: we receive from Allah in the measure we extend to His creation. When we clutch our grievances tightly, we are, in some interior sense, insisting that debts must be collected and wrongs must be paid for by whoever holds the claim. The Quran redirects that claim entirely leave it with Allah. Whoever forgives and amends, his reward is with Allah.

Imam Muhammad al-Baqir (as) said: "Regret over pardon is better than remorse over punishment." Even if you forgive and later wonder whether you should have that regret is lighter than the weight of having withheld mercy when you could have extended it.

There is one more thing resentment does: it keeps us focused outward. On what they did. On who they are. On whether they have suffered enough. The Quran consistently calls us back to our own account: our own nafs, our own choices, our own standing before Allah. We are not going to be bearing the burden of others, as the Quran reminds us. Resentment is a form of turning outward when the real work is inward. It is a distraction because it keeps our attention on their wrongdoing [which is not our spiritual business and not something we are accountable for] rather than our own response [which is our business and what we are accountable for]. 

We are in the final stretch of Ramadan. We have asked Allah repeatedly to cover our wrongs, to pardon our offenses, to not deal with us according to what we deserve. We have recited in Dua al-Tawbah: ""O God, deal with me with the dealing of a mighty one to whom a lowly slave implores and he shows mercy... and follow up my evil deeds with Your pardon." Allah has been slow to call us to account. He has been Patient. And Generous. He has not collected every debt immediately. Can we practice extending even a fraction of that patience toward those who owe us?

Let us remind ourselves that the journey of forgiveness begins with the readiness and intention to forgive. It is not a single moment. It is a direction, a choice made once, and then again tomorrow when the memory surfaces, and again the day after. We only need to have begun. 

For reflection:

• What does it mean to you that the forgiveness you extend to others is connected to the mercy you are hoping to receive from Allah?
• What would happen if we look within and ask ourselves: what has holding this grudge actually cost us? What has it taken from our salah, our sleep, our Ramadan? Sometimes seeing clearly the cost we are paying is the beginning of the decision to stop paying it.

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