Allah, The Most Exalted, says in His Glorious Book:

I said to them: “Ask forgiveness from your Lord; surely He is Most Forgiving.

He will shower upon you torrents from heaven,

and will prove you with wealth and children, and will bestow upon you gardens and rivers.

Allah, the Most Exalted, speaks the truth.

One of the most important worshipping acts the Messenger(p.) called for performing in this month is asking for forgiveness. He(p.) said: Rajab is the month of forgiveness for my nation, so ask forgiveness in abundance.

 Many forms of asking for forgiveness were reported including:

I ask forgiveness from God Almighty and repent to Him. Glory be to Allah and praise be to Him. There is no god but Allah, the only one who has no partner, to Him belongs the sovereignty, and to Him is the praise, and He has power over all things…

And saying: I ask forgiveness of Allah and I repent to Him 70 times in the morning and 70 times in the evening, then raise your hands and say: O Allah forgive me and   accept my repentance. it is He who is the Accepting of repentance, the Merciful.  And: I Ask Allah, The Lord of Majesty and Honor to forgive all my sins.

Asking Allah, The Most Exalted, forgiveness is naturally to ask Allah, The Most Exalted, for forgiveness for all one’s sins, but it also includes forgiveness for not performing one’s duties towards one’s family, relatives and neighbors and all whom one happens to be responsible for.

 Asking Allah for forgiveness includes also what Imam Zein Al-Abidein used to apologize for:

O God, I ask pardon from You for

the person wronged in my presence whom I did not help,

the favor conferred upon me for which I returned no thanks,

the evildoer who asked pardon from me and whom I did not pardon,

the needy person who asked from me and whom I preferred not over myself,

the right of a believer who possesses a right incumbent upon me which I did not fulfil…

it is also the forgiveness for not keeping pledges as he used to say in another Dua:

 O Allah, I seek forgiveness from You for every vow I have vowed, every promise I have made and every pledge I have pledged and then I failed to keep it for You…

 The Holy Ayats and the honorable Hadiths have pointed out to the positive effect of asking for forgiveness on man. It purifies his/her soul and mends and strengthens their relations with their Lord.  Allah, The Most Exalted, has promised those who ask for forgiveness to accept their request regardless of their sin: And whoever does a wrong or wrongs himself but then seeks forgiveness of Allah will find Allah Forgiving and Merciful. He also said: Say ˹O Prophet, that Allah says, ˺ “O My servants who have exceeded the limits against their souls! Do not lose hope in Allah’s mercy, for Allah certainly forgives all sins…  The Hadith says: your disease is sins, and your medicine is seeking forgiveness. The Hadith also says that “Iblis said: ‘By Your Glory, I shall strive to lead Your servants astray so long as their souls are in their bodies.’ Allah said: ‘By My Glory and Majesty, I shall continue to forgive them so long as they ask Me for forgiveness. Seeking forgiveness also leads also to increasing the wealth and prevents adversities in this world. One would be cared for by his Lord. And this is but natural for when one improves his/ her relation with Allah, The Most Exalted, and purifies himself/herself, Allah, The Most Exalted, will not let him/her suffer and endure the difficulties of life. He says:

I said to them: “Ask forgiveness from your Lord; surely He is Most Forgiving.

He will shower upon you torrents from heaven,

and will provide you with wealth and children, and will bestow upon you gardens and rivers.

The Prophet (p.) said: If anyone continually asks pardon, Allah will appoint for him a way out of every distress, and a relief from every anxiety, and will provide for him from where he did not reckon.

And this is what Imam Ali(a.s.) pointed to when he said: There are two sources of deliverance from the Allah’s punishment, one of which has been raised up, while the other is before you. You should therefore adhere to it. The source of deliverance which has been raised up is the Messenger of Allah (p.), while the source of deliverance that remains is the seeking of forgiveness. Allah, the Glorified, has said: And Allah is not to chastise them while you are among them, nor is Allah to chastise them while yet they seek forgiveness.

As to how one should seek forgiveness, it is not restricted to the tongue only as some might think. It exceeds that to removing the consequences of the sins and going back to follow the straight path. Imam Ali(a.s.) explained this when he was asked about seeking forgiveness(Istighfar). He said: Do you know what is istighfar? Verily istighfar is a degree of the ‘illiyyun (people of high station) and it is a word that means six things. First is remorse over the past. Second, the resolution not to return to it ever. Third, to return to the people  their rights (usurped in the past) so that you meet God Almighty in such a state of purity that no one has any claim against you. Fourth, that you fulfil every duty that was neglected by you, in order to satisfy your obligation in respect of it. Fifth, that you attend to the flesh of your body that had grown on unlawful nourishment so that it melts away as a result of grief and mourning and the skin adheres to the bones, after which new flesh grows there between. Sixth, that you make your body taste the pain of obedience in the same way as it tasted earlier the pleasure of sinfulness. When you have done these things then say Astaghfirullah!

That is why, dear loved ones, we should seize the opportunity of this blessed month which Allah, The Most Exalted, has promised to open the gates of mercy in more than any other month, to seek forgiveness to improve our relations with our Lord and attain what those who ask for forgiveness were promised with. We should not postpone our repentance until we perform pilgrimage for example, for it may be too late…

 Dear loved ones: in these difficult circumstances, we are in a dire need to bridge the gap that might have widened between us and God and go back to the straight path, so that Allah, The Most Exalted, will have mercy on us and bless us with His forgiveness, mercy and guidance and warding off adversities and calamities.

The second sermon

Worshippers of Allah, The Most Exalted, I advise you and myself to be pious and fear Allah, The Most Exalted, which means that we ought to worship and obey Him.  Imam Al-Jawad, whose birth anniversary is on the tenth of this month, explained this when he said: When someone listens to a speaker, he believes in him and follows him, he worships Allah if the speaker speaks on behalf of Allah; and if the speaker speaks on behalf of Satan then he worships Satan. When you listen to someone, your heart and mind will be attracted to him, you would be worshipping him because your mind, and consequently your stances and actions, would be subjected to him. If he is talking on behalf of Allah, The Most Exalted, then you are worshipping God, but if he is saying what differs from Allah, The Most Exalted, wants, thus distorting man’s values and Allah, The Most Exalted’s rulings and Sharia, then you are worshipping Satan. Therefore, when you listen to a preacher or a speaker, whether directly or through TV and social media, you have to find out whom he represents, so as you would not be deceived and fall in the trap of a devil disguised   as a human being. Thus we would become well-informed in politics, religion, social sciences and life in general and capable of facing challenges.

We begin with Lebanon whose citizens are suffocating as a result of the aggravation of the economic, security, social and health crises, with no serious initiative in sight to end the deterioration, except some sedatives. The price of the dollar, the basic commodities, as well as   the rate of poverty, violence, crime and theft continue to rise, while forming the government which is supposed to solve these crises seems intractable, as the relevant parties hang on to their conditions and refuse to move any step towards the other or offer any concession.

 The inflamed arguments have shown how deep is the crisis and how much the trust is lost among them, which means that even if the government were to be formed, it might not be able to play its role.

All this is taking place at a time the domestic goodwill initiatives have stopped and the external parties do not wish to intervene unless the internal parties relinquish their political polarization which has led to fail previous initiatives and hasten to form a government that would initiate reform…

 We believe that the failure to form a government will lead to a state of chaos that would benefit those who want to make use of the country as a card to play in the background of the changes that are being drawn for the region….

 Based on this, we renew our call to all parties to have pity on the country and its citizens and even their own positions to abandon their private and partisan calculations which will be worthless when the country collapses.

It is about time for all parties to understand that this country has and will always be founded on three pillars:  Mutual understanding and agreement, no winner and no loser and reciprocal concessions in the interest of the country’s existence and stability.

In this respect, we warn against using the confessional and sectarian rhetoric in the midst of the ongoing struggle, since it is a personal struggle that has to do with the political interests of this or that party, while the confession or the sect does not benefit and might even lose … We   trust that the Lebanese will not fall once again in the traps of the politicians and will not let them manipulate their political and sectarian instincts.

 We would also like to call for an end to the inflamed rows in the press and media, and that everybody should recognize his responsibility towards what he says or writes. We are not against the freedom of speech, which is one of characteristics of this country, but we ask those who have a media outlet to be aware of the results of the words said or written that could be catastrophic and put gasoline on the fire.    

As for the loan from the world bank for a national social safety net in Lebanon, we call to speedup enacting and distributing it to those who deserve away from any political considerations or favoritism, although we have our reservation on the loans in principle, having become the only way to help the citizens.

 Lastly, in the light of the increase of the number of those infected with the pandemic, we renew our call to strictly abide by the precautionary measures.       

And we hope that the arrival of the vaccine would reduce its spread, especially that we are in a race with this virus.