The 365 · Verses · Day 307 · Mercy
Allah is named al-Tawwāb: the One who turns back to His servants. He accepts before you offer. He turns toward you while you are still walking toward Him.
Qur'an Qur'ān 42:25 (al-Shūrā)
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِى يَقْبَلُ ٱلتَّوْبَةَ عَنْ عِبَادِهِۦ وَيَعْفُوا۟ عَنِ ٱلسَّيِّـَٔاتِ وَيَعْلَمُ مَا تَفْعَلُونَ
“And it is He who accepts repentance from His servants and pardons misdeeds, and He knows what you do.”
Svenska: Och Han är den som tar emot ånger från Sina tjänare och förlåter missgärningar, och Han vet vad ni gör.
The story
Sūrat al-Shūrā is the surah of consultation. The surah weaves through the principles of community and revelation. Verse 25 lands in the middle as a divine descriptive: Allah is named by what He does, He accepts tawbah and pardons. The verse is the believer's daily anchor: the God we worship is the God who accepts the returning.
In the language
Yaqbalu al-tawbah: He accepts the tawbah. The verb is in the active perfect; Allah is described in this verse as the actively-accepting One. Yaʿfū ʿani al-sayyiʾāt: pardons misdeeds. ʿAfw is more than maghfirah; it is the erasure of the act itself from the record, not just its concealment. Wa yaʿlamu mā tafʿalūn: AND He knows what you do. Even knowing, He still accepts.
Why this verse
The verse names Allah by His habitual action: He accepts. The verb is structurally present. It is not 'He will accept' or 'He might accept'; it is 'He IS the accepting One.' The tawbah you make tonight meets a Lord who is, in His very Being, the Acceptor. The verse is the architecture of return.
Bring it into today
Day four. The previous verses opened the door (V305) and commanded the return (V306). This verse describes the One waiting at the door: al-Tawwāb. Today: make tawbah trusting the description. The Accepter is named.
A reflection to carry
There is a beautiful name of Allah hidden in this verse: al-Tawwāb. The intensive form of the verb. He who turns back, again and again, repeatedly. The hadith says: even if a servant sinned seventy times in a day and returned to Allah seventy times, He would forgive him each time (Ibn Abī al-Dunyā). The seventy is a Quranic number for limitless. Allah's al-Tawwāb is unwearied. Our shame at returning is the only thing that limits the cycle. He is not tired of receiving. We are tired of returning.
Read the longer reflection
There is a structural beauty in the Arabic of this verse. Allah does not say 'he forgives sins.' He says yaqbalu al-tawbah, 'He accepts the tawbah.' The grammatical subject is not the sin but the tawbah. The sin was an action; the tawbah is a counter-action; Allah accepts the counter-action. This subtle shift is the entire theology of return. Allah is not just removing the sin; He is REWARDING the tawbah. The believer who makes tawbah is not just escaping punishment; he is earning a station with Allah. The hadith says: Allah is more delighted by the tawbah of His servant than a man who lost his camel in the desert and then found it (Bukhārī, Muslim). The DELIGHT is His. He is not reluctantly forgiving; He is gladly accepting. Picture that. Allah delighted at your tawbah. Then make your next tawbah with the awareness that you are bringing Him something He delights in receiving. The whole posture changes. Yā Allāh, al-Tawwāb, You who delight in our return, accept our tawbah today and every day, and never close the door before we have walked through it. Āmīn.
Sources: Ibn Kathir, Tabari, Saadi. 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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