SELF-CONTROL & Power of Repentance!

Every person faces internal conflict from birth to death and will either triumph over it or succumb to it. Allah, the Almighty, says:

"Truly he succeeds who purifies it, and he fails who corrupts it!" [Qur’an 91:9-10]

The Prophet (s) warned: "Trails will be opened to a man just like a mat, one after another. When a heart is influenced by a trial, one black dot will be written on it, and when a heart ignores it, then a white dot will be written until the heart becomes one of the two kinds, either white as white stone, which will pass any test, or dark black, because it has never followed the good or ignored evil in its conflict with the soul."

Mankind can be categorized into two groups:

1) Those who are defeated by their desires. These people obey the world and are immersed in worldly matters. They are the nonbelievers. Those who follow them are the ones who forget Allah, so Allah forgets them. Says the Qur’an:

"Have you ever seen a person who takes as his god his own desires? Allah knows this and so has left him astray, and sealed his hearing and his heart [and understanding] and veiled his sight. Who, then, will guide him after Allah [has withdrawn guidance]? Will you not then receive admonition." [Qur’an 45:23]

2) Those who struggle against their desires. In doing so, sometimes they win and sometimes they lose. When they do wrong they repent. When they commit sins they regret them and ask forgiveness from Allah. Allah, the Almighty, says:

"Vie with one another to attain your Sustainer’s (Allah's) forgiveness and to (attain) a paradise as vast as the heavens, when they and the earth, which has been readied for the God-conscious, who, when they have done something to be ashamed of or wronged their own souls, earnestly bring God to mind and ask for forgiveness for their sins - for who can forgive sins except Allah - and do not knowingly persist in (the wrong) they have done." [Qur’an 3:135]

The Prophet (s) told us: "All sons of Adam (Human beings) make mistakes. The best among them are those who do wrong and repent." [Tirmidhi]

In this matter it was reported from Wahib ibn Munabbih, that once Iblis went to meet Prophet Yahya ibn Zakariya. Yahya said to him, "Tell me how you fare with the sons of Adam." Iblis said, "Some of them are just like you; they are free from sins so we can never seduce them. The second type of people I can play with just like children play with balls. Their desires help us to defeat them. But the third type of people are very difficult for us. We pursue them until we succeed in achieving what we want, but then they repent, and destroy all that we have accomplished, so we can never frustrate or finally stop them."

("To be a Muslim", by Shk. Fathi Yakun)