The 365 · Verses · Day 48 · Repentance
The verb is intensive. He loves those who keep coming back. Not those who never left. Those who keep returning.
Qur'an Q 2:222 (closing clause)
وَيَسْـَٔلُونَكَ عَنِ ٱلْمَحِيضِ ۖ قُلْ هُوَ أَذًى فَٱعْتَزِلُوا۟ ٱلنِّسَآءَ فِى ٱلْمَحِيضِ ۖ وَلَا تَقْرَبُوهُنَّ حَتَّىٰ يَطْهُرْنَ ۖ فَإِذَا تَطَهَّرْنَ فَأْتُوهُنَّ مِنْ حَيْثُ أَمَرَكُمُ ٱللَّهُ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلتَّوَّٰبِينَ وَيُحِبُّ ٱلْمُتَطَهِّرِينَ
“...God loves those who turn to Him, and He loves those who keep themselves clean. (Abdel Haleem, closing clause of 2:222)”
Svenska: Gud älskar dem som vänder tillbaka till Honom i ånger [om de har syndat] och Han älskar dem som vill rena sig. (Knut Bernström, closing clause)
The story
Ibn Kathir reports the sabab al-nuzūl from Imam Aḥmad: the Jews of Madinah used to fully avoid menstruating women, refusing even to eat or share a house with them. The Companions asked the Prophet ﷺ about this practice. Allah revealed the verse. The Prophet ﷺ then taught the middle position: 'Do everything except intercourse.' The closing phrase of this ayah, beyond the legal ruling, names a permanent disposition of Allah: He loves those who repeatedly turn to Him, and He loves those who purify themselves. Ibn ʿAbbās commented on the closing clause: 'Allah loves those who turn to Him in repentance even if it is repeated, and those who purify themselves from impurity.' The grammatical form التَّوَّابِينَ (at-tawwabīn, intensive plural) means not just those who repent, but those who repeat the repentance.
In the language
التَّوَّابِينَ is the intensive plural (faʿʿāl form) of one who turns. It does not mean someone who repented once. It means someone whose pattern is to keep turning, again and again. The same form is used for Allah: Tawwāb is one of His names, 'the One who keeps turning to His servants.' The mirror is exact: He keeps turning to those who keep turning to Him. الْمُتَطَهِّرِينَ (al-mutaṭahhirīn) is the active participle of taṭahhara (form V), to make oneself pure. The form V verb implies effort, not perfection. Allah loves those who try to clean themselves, not just those who succeed.
Why this verse
The closing clause of 2:222 names a permanent disposition of Allah: He loves those who repeatedly turn to Him. The grammatical form at-tawwabīn (intensive plural) means not just those who repented once, but those whose pattern is to keep coming back. The same form is used for Allah's own name: at-Tawwāb.
Bring it into today
The next time you find yourself sinning and immediately turning back, do not punish yourself for the cycle. The cycle is the qualification. The verb form is intensive precisely because the pattern is the point. Keep turning. He keeps turning back.
A reflection to carry
There is a deep mercy in the grammar of this closing clause. التَّوَّابِينَ (at-tawwabīn) is not the singular 'the one who repented.' It is the intensive plural: those who keep on turning, those whose habit is return. The verb form pairs with one of Allah's own names, at-Tawwāb, the one who keeps turning toward His servants. The two parties are doing the same motion in opposite directions, and the ayah names the meeting point as love. Some translations soften 'yuḥibbu' to 'approves of,' but the Arabic is unambiguous: Allah loves them. He loves the ones who keep stumbling and keep coming back. The continuity is the qualification, not the perfection.
Read the longer reflection
This verse closes a passage of practical legal instruction with a phrase that has nothing legal in it. The first half of 2:222 deals with the rules of menstruation, an embodied, specific, legal matter. The second half steps out of the legal frame entirely and names what Allah loves. Why this juxtaposition? Because the Quran is teaching us that even the most embodied, ritually specific commandments live inside an emotional architecture: He loves those who turn back. He loves those who try to clean themselves. The legal practice is the form; the love is the content. Read this way, every single act of ṭahārah you have ever done (wuḍū' before prayer, ghusl after janābah, the small purifications between sins) is sitting inside an ocean of being-loved. The ocean was named at the close of this verse, in case you forgot why you were performing the act in the first place.
Sources: Ibn Kathir. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
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