I request you to make some clarifications on the forgiveness of God. Reason why I bring this up is that two young Ahmadis had invited two Christian friends for a meeting on religion. Where? When? Where? Where? At the home of one of them. Hmm? At the home of one of them, at their own home. In London, are you mean? Yes, in London. Right, right. Just a couple of weeks ago. Right. And they were kind enough to ask me to come along. Yes. And one of the subjects which were discussed was the forgiveness of God. What?
The forgiveness. Forgiveness, yes, yes. Forgiveness of God. And we all know that Christians have the idea that the forgiveness of God depends on somebody’s suffering. But when we, the Ahmadis, were to explain whether the forgiveness of God is in any way limited or depending on something, on the part of men, then we found that there was a slight variance in our understanding. For instance? Whether our repentance is required for God to be in a position to forgive us. Yes, yes, yes, right, right. Please sit down. First of all, in principle, we should clarify the concept of forgiveness. The detailed behaviour of God under that general principle cannot be determined by us. And that is all we can conceive, that a benign God has to have such powers or such attributes. And that should be his general behaviour. But application, in particular cases, will be his freedom. So we can’t say whether he should forgive this and such a person and should not forgive such a such person. This will be going too far. So I’ll only restrict myself to the fundamental question as explained in the Holy Quran.
The concept of the Holy Quran, as the Promised Messiah, peace be upon him, has explained in comparison to Christianity, is that God is the proprietor of everything. Not only a ruler who is not a proprietor. God has created everything, he owns everything, to him will everything return. So Malik is the most important word on which the Promised Messiah, peace be upon him, has laid so much stress in his debates with the Atom and other Christians. He says if somebody is a Malik, then his scope of forgiveness is much, much larger than one who is not the master or possessor of things, but is just a servant of law or a sovereign.
Even if a sovereign he is, he has some restrictions because he doesn’t own the entire country or the people themselves. So because the Holy Quran lays stress on this attribute of Allah, so Allah does not have to ask anybody or break any laws to forgive someone. Only a small moral issue is sometimes involved, only sometimes. For instance, if I owe you something, and you are the proprietor of that something, you can forgive that to me without anybody raising any objection. But if a child of yours, who owns everything which you have given him, takes something away from another child of yours, who also has everything which you have given, so you remain the ultimate proprietor, but one child transgresses upon the rights of the others and takes away that property.
So you still are the ultimate proprietor, but the sense which Allah has given us dictates to us that if God forgives, if the father forgives the crime of one child against the other in the name of his proprietary, that there still would be a sense of injustice in that action of Allah. So in that way his scope of forgiveness becomes limited, despite the fact that he is the proprietor. So what would be his limitations then? What would be the scope of his forgiveness as compared to human relationship? One transgressing upon others, one committing a crime against others.
Now we again come to the observation of cruelty of one man against the other. Somebody gouges the eyes of other people, or mutilates them in some way, which leaves them as horrible sights in society, and deprives them of earning their bread and so on and so forth. There are such crimes who were heinous while they were committed, but their being heinous was not limited to the act of crime alone. They left scars which would never heal. They left such misery behind, as would continue, nobody has the power to remedy such misery.
Somebody’s nose is cut and severed, so he has to live with that, and so on and so forth. So will Allah forgive such people under the excuse that he is the possessor and proprietor of all things, so I forgive? Well, he can, he’s the master. But still there would be a jarring sense left within us, something disturbing us, that alright he has forgiven, but still we don’t like it, that forgiveness. So again in this regard we find some limitations. But Christianity’s answer is no answer to this either. It involves further complications, you see? So wherever there are imposition of restrictions on Allah from this point of view, from Islamic point of view, there are greater restrictions on the act of, on the concept of Christianity.
Where the God is neither proprietor nor should interfere with anybody else’s crime, why if his son has suffered, should other people also begin to forgive their enemies? Unless they forgive, how can that crime be absolved? There’s no answer to this. So what is the Islamic philosophy? That is to be seen and further studied. Islam says that if you commit a crime against Allah, there is no limit of forgiveness. But if you commit a crime against your brothers, you should expect minimum punishment from him, equal to what you did, and you should also expect forgiveness from him.
And still you will not be totally absolved because there you have committed double crime. One violation of Allah’s rule, in violation of Allah’s dictates you have usurped your brother’s rights. So two pardons are necessary here. One the pardon from the party which is aggrieved, second the pardon from Allah himself. So it depends on the attitude of the person. If he’s belligerent, if he defies, then how can you expect Allah to forgive despite the fact that he can? So as far as the limitations of his forgiveness are concerned, because he’s the master, all powerful and the possessor of everything, if he decides to forgive someone, nobody can stop it.
That is 100% correct, and he doesn’t have to invent an excuse to forgive. But we know him to be the source of all wisdom as well, the source of justice as well, not only the source of forgiveness, but also the source of justice. So we must expect very sane and very balanced behaviour from Allah. Not that he goes on forgiving one crime against the other without giving recompense to the other party. So this is why Allah has explained all these situations in detail, most beautifully. For instance he tells us that during the day of judgement, it is possible, I mean it may happen that once some person has committed a crime against somebody else, and Allah wants to forgive him.
This is the situation. Because overall he’s good, and Allah knows it better. So it will be very disgraceful for Allah, and that also you can’t expect, that he should beseech every individual to forgive that crime, he wants to forgive and you forgive that crime. So this is also a very upset situation. So what Allah would do is, that if somebody is forgiven, some of the crimes of the other person will also be forgiven. And he will be rewarded for that. Here now it sounds very reasonable and acceptable to you. This is the only course in fact open in such a difficult complex situation.
If a child has taken some money from the other child, if you then forgive that child, because overall he’s good, and you understand that he didn’t mean ill, then what you can do is, you can recompense him for the money stolen from him, plus you can give extra money to him to equalize both boys. And to show love to him in some way so that his suffering is condoned. So that is the humane way we adopt here. So Allah tells us that Allah would behave at the day of his resurrection in a manner as will not be against our nature. You see how he behaves and your nature goes on confirming it and saying yes this is how it should be. So Allah tells us that if somebody has committed crime against somebody else and Allah wants to punish him, what will happen?
I mean punish him in two ways, he has to punish him in two ways. One, crime committed against himself, for that he can put him to hell. But another party which has suffered at the hands of that party, how can that party be recompensed by his punishment? That is the issue. For that Allah gives this answer that the party which has transgressed against another party also has some good points. It’s impossible for a criminal to be entirely bad. So his good points would be taken from him and transferred to the account of the party which is aggrieved. And if his good points finish, what then? Then Allah tells us that the aggrieved party is not entirely good. It must have committed many crimes.
So Allah would take some of his crimes and transfer it to the account of the other party. So they will be recompensed, yet Allah will punish them as the master decides or after the compensation he may forgive, then there is no objection. So it’s a very complicated affair, but if you read the traditions of Huzoor on this subject, they are most wonderful. And at times he tells us that there is completely no limitation on Allah’s forgiveness. He has the means and ways to forgive people if he so decides. And his mastery is not over dead things, lifeless things. His mastery is also over hearts. So he can change hearts.
If I suffer at the hands of my brother and Allah wants to forgive him and also want to condone me, Allah can change my heart and transfer some of his mercy to my heart, gift me with such mercy as I become forgiving myself. I take some of Allah’s attributes and really desire to forgive him. That is also a mercy of Allah. So he has limitless powers. You can’t in fact limit him by way of his forgiveness or mercy. Only logical questions can be asked here and there as I have demonstrated, but every such question can be answered easily.
