O Allah, I forgive this person for your sake.. I hope you will forgive me too..

I've never had a problem forgiving anyone throughout my life, except one person. My heart only ever found it difficult to forgive this one person for a number of years now. I've tried countless times before and even uttered words to say I've forgiven the person but deep down in my heart, I knew I hadn't.


That is, until yesterday. A couple of weeks back after one of the salaahs, a sheikh stood up and gave a beautiful speech on forgiveness and how the Prophet (pbuh) was forgiving. He had forgiven people who harmed him, his family and those beloved to him. He endured peoples' taunts and physical abuse, yet, he (pbuh) always saw the bigger picture and forgave people.

This talk touched my heart and I made it an aim to rectify my heart. Thus it was that during tawaaf yesterday, during sa'at istijaaba insha'Allah, I uttered the words: "O Allah, I forgive this person for your sake.. I hope you will forgive me too."

Wallahi I kid you not, as soon as I said those words, I felt a heavy burden being lifted from my heart. Allah is the Most Merciful.

Looking back now, I reflect on the whole situation and feel ashamed. This person, no matter how great their action was or how bad it felt, their actions could never ever be compared or come close to the actions of the people of Taif when they harmed our habeeb (pbuh). Yet, when the Angel said:

“O Muhammad! Order what you wish. If you like, I will cause the two mountains to fall upon them.”
How did our habeeb (pbuh) respond? He (pbuh) simply said:

“No, for I hope that Allah will bring forth from their progeny people who will worship Allah Alone, and none besides Him.”
Or what about the time the Prophet (pbuh) told the story of a prophet who was beaten by his people and he wiped the blood from his face, saying:

رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِقَوْمِي فَإِنَّهُمْ لا يَعْلَمُونَ
"My Lord, forgive my people for they do not know."
My dearest brother or sister, I'm only sharing this in the hope that if you're holding a grudge against someone, maybe you too will find the courage to forgive that person before Ramadan. I end with something a dear friend posted a while back which always comes to my mind, not the exact wording but something to the effect of:

"In the end, we're going to bury each other anyway so why hold grudges?"
May Allah grant me and you a heart that always forgives. Ramadan is a month of Mercy and forgiveness, let's start by forgiving others...