The Grief of the Old Sin

Are you feeling grief? You looked at your recent condition and didn't find that you committed a "new" sin? So you wondered: (Where did this grief come from?)

Know, my brother in dealing with Allah:

1. You may feel grief for an old sin... days and months have passed over it, and you were given opportunities to repent from it but you did not repent, so you felt safe from its punishment and forgot that Allah delays but does not neglect! Therefore, it was beautiful in the supplication of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in his prostration: (O Allah, forgive me my sin, all of it, its smallness and its greatness, its beginning and its end, its openness and its secrecy) (Muslim).. Its smallness: meaning what is small and insignificant from it, and note: and its beginning (the old) and its end (the new).

And it was also from his supplication, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, as narrated by Imam Muslim:

(O Allah, forgive me my sin and my ignorance, and my excess in my affairs, and what You know about me better than I do. O Allah, forgive me my seriousness and my joking, my mistake and my intention, and all of that is with me. O Allah, forgive me what I have done in the past and what I have delayed, and what I have kept secret and what I have made public, and what You know about me better than I do. You are the One who brings forward and the One who delays, and You are able over all things).

2. We disobey Allah a lot and daily, and repeated sins, some of which are "actions" and some of which (and the more hidden) are "neglect," neglecting duties that we have postponed and delayed in.

But our sense of sin becomes dull, so we no longer see it! Rather, it has become part of the faded background of our daily lives.

3. That we sometimes have "shamelessness" in dealing with Allah! We belittle the sin, then we look: if Allah does not punish us immediately, we feel safe and add this sin to the circle of (our acquisitions) and we continue to get used to it from our sins! Considering that Allah has made it easy for us (He has made it easy for us), forgetting in that the shyness from Allah and leaving the sin out of love for Him and glorification.

4. That we are a merciful nation. So the grief that befalls you because of your sin is not pure punishment, but it may be purification and purification, may Allah have mercy on you with it to divert from you a greater punishment on the Day of Judgment.

Abu Bakr said: (O Messenger of Allah, how is righteousness after this verse: {Whoever does evil will be recompensed with it} [An-Nisa': 123]?! Every evil we have done, will we be recompensed for it?!

- So the Messenger of Allah said: (May Allah forgive you, O Abu Bakr. Do you not get sick? Do you not get tired (meaning you get tired and hardship befalls you)? Do you not get sad? Do you not get hardship and difficulty in life? He said: Yes.

He said: (This is what you are recompensed with).

So grief and sadness are purifying and expiating sins.

- Remember all of this, so that when grief befalls you, do not say: (Why, O Lord?!) But submit and repent and return saying: (Forgive me, O Lord).

- O Allah, return us to You in a beautiful return and remove from us and from the Muslims all grief, worry, and sadness.

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Note: We do not limit the causes of sadness to old sins, but we say it is one of its causes.