Asbab al-Maghfira

Asbab al-Maghfira (Causes of Forgiveness) is a treatise attributed to the Hanbali scholar Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali (d. 795 AH / 1393 CE) that expounds on the means by which a believer attains divine pardon and the remission of sins Qawaid Ibn Rajab+1.

Origin and Composition

Bibliographical studies on Ibn Rajab's corpus note that Asbab al-Maghfira was not composed as an independent monograph by the author; rather, it was extracted from his comprehensive commentary Jami' al-'Ulum wa-l-Hikam (The Compendium of Sciences and Wisdoms) Qawaid Ibn Rajab+1. The text represents his commentary on the forty-second hadith of al-Nawawi's al-Arba'un (The Forty Hadiths), transmitted on the authority of Anas ibn Malik and documented by al-Tirmidhi Asbab al-Maghfira+1.

Content and Structure

The treatise centers on the exposition of a hadith qudsi in which God says:

يا ابن آدم إنك ما دعوتني ورجوتني غفرت لك على ما كان منك ولا أبالي، يا ابن آدم لو بلغت ذنوبك عنان السماء ثم استغفرتني غفرت لك، يا ابن آدم إنك لو أتيتني بقراب الأرض خطايا ثم لقيتني لا تشرك بي شيئا لأتيتك بقرابها مغفرة "O son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and put your hope in Me, I will forgive you for what you have done and I do not mind; O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and then you asked My forgiveness, I would forgive you; O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with an earth full of sins and then meet Me without associating anything with Me, I would bring you an earth full of forgiveness." Asbab al-Maghfira+1

Drawing from this narration, the work delineates three primary causes for obtaining divine forgiveness:

1. Supplication with hope (الدعاء مع الرجاء): Calling upon God with certainty and earnest expectation of an answer, recognizing that no one else possesses the power to forgive sins or hold servants accountable for them Asbab al-Maghfira+1.
2. Seeking forgiveness (الاستغفار): Petitioning God for pardon, which is most effective and complete when accompanied by the cessation of persistence in sin (عدم الإصرار) Tawdih al-Ahkam min Bulug…+1.
3. Monotheism (التوحيد): Maintaining pure faith in God's oneness without polytheism, which Ibn Rajab characterizes as the greatest of all causes; whoever lacks it is denied forgiveness entirely, while whoever comes with it—even with sins nearing the capacity of the earth—meets with God's vast forgiveness according to His divine will Tawdih al-Ahkam min Bulug…+1.

Publication

The extracted text has been published as an independent booklet under the title Asbab al-Maghfira, edited by Ashraf ibn 'Abd al-Maqsud Qawaid Ibn Rajab+1.