The Essence of Islam – Volume I — Page 259
The Holy Prophetsa 259 the righteous. To supplicate the Fountain of real life for the water of security to safeguard spiritual life, or to promote it, is described in the Holy Qur'ān as Istighfär. . Reflect on the Holy Qur'an and read it with care and you will alight upon the reality of Istighfär. The dictionary meaning of Maghfirat is a covering which is designed to safeguard against a misfortune. For instance, water is an element that covers up the defects of trees and is thus. Maghfirat. Consider what would be the condition of a garden which receives no water for a year or two. Is it not true that its beauty will be destroyed and there will be no sign left of its greenness? It will produce no fruit and no flowers. Its inside will be burnt up. Its green and soft leaves will dry up and fall down; and dryness overcoming it, all its limbs will fall away from it like the limbs of a leper. Why will all these calamities overtake it? Because the water upon which its life depended was not available. This is referred to in the verse: كلِمَةً طَيِّبَةً كَشَجَرَةٍ طَيِّبَةٍ : 153. A good word is like a good tree. . As a good and noble tree cannot flourish without water, in the same way, the good word of a righteous person cannot flourish till a pure spring refreshes its roots by flowing in the stream of Istighfär. Thus the spiritual life of a person depends upon Istighfar through the stream of which the true spring reaches the root of humanness and safeguards it from drying up and dying. . The religion which does not set forth this philosophy is certainly not from God, and a person who claims to be a 153 Ibrāhīm, 14:25 [Publisher]