The Essence of Islam – Volume II — Page 242
242. Essence of Islam II. Istighfar is ghafara, which means to cover up. Thus, the meaning of Istighfar is that God should cover up the natural weakness of the supplicant with His power. This meaning is then enlarged to include the covering up of a sin that has been committed, but the true meaning is that. God should safeguard the supplicant against his natural weakness and should bestow upon him power from His power, and knowledge from His knowledge, and light from His light. . Having created man, God has not become separated from him, but as He is man's Creator and the Creator of all his external and internal faculties, He is also All-Sustaining, that is to say, He safeguards with His support everything that He has created. It is, therefore, necessary for man that as he has been created by God, he should seek to safeguard the features of his creation through the AllSustaining attribute of the Divine. . . . . Thus this is a natural need of man for which he has been directed to carry out Istighfar. This is referred to in the verse: 81 الله لا اله إلا هُوَ الْحَيُّ الْقَيُّومُ لا . . . . . He is both Creator and All-Sustaining. When man was created, the function of creation was completed, but the function of sustaining is forever and that is why. Istighfar is needed all the time. Every attribute of God possesses a grace and Istighfar is needed for winning the grace of the attribute of ‘All-Sustaining'. The same is indicated in the verse of Surah Fātiḥah: إيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ 82 81 'Allāh there is no God but He, the Living, the Self-Subsisting and All-Sustaining. '-Al-Baqarah, 2:256 [Publisher]