im (mercifully); surely God is Forgiving, Merciful. (5:39).
The Qur'an also refers to the fact that God not only forgives those who seek forgiveness, but also He may change their wrong deeds to good deeds. On those who repent and believe and do good deeds, the Qur'an says:"... these are they of whom God changes the evil deeds to good ones; and God is Forgiving, Merciful." (25:70).
It is interesting that in the Qur'an, God is introduced not as the one who just accepts the repentance of his servants and returns to them when they return to him. Indeed, it is God Himself that first attends to His servants who have broken in a way or another their servitude relationship with God, but still have love for goodness and truths in their hearts (i.e. their hearts are not sealed). God returns to such servants and then they repent and return to Him, and then God returns to them to forgive them. Therefore, as S.H. Tabatabai, the author of Al‑Mizan in 20 volumes, notifies, every repentance and return of a wrongdoer servant is surrounded by two returns of God: the first return that gives that person the ability for voluntary repentance and the second return which is His forgiveness after the person has repented. The fact is clearly suggested by the Qur'an:
... they knew it for certain that there was no refuge from God but in Him; then He turned to them (mercifully) that they might turn (to Him); Surely God is the oft‑returning (to mercy), the Merciful. (9:118)
According to Islamic mysticism, one's knowledge of God as the most beautiful and perfect being and the source of all good things that one has and successively one's love for God who is love and mercy gets so strong and encompassing that it will occupy all one's heart. At the same time, knowledge of one's weakness and deficiencies in front of God gets so intensive and deep that finally he will feel emptiness and nothingness. As such a person loses his sense of Iness and becomes selfless, he will be identifiable with every type of goodness. From nothingness, one reaches the position of everythingness. He will feel no limitation or restriction. In a well‑known hadith, we read that
A pure servant of God whose will is melt into His will be able to bring about extraordinary deeds.
Sheikh Mahmud Shabistari in his Sa'adat Nameh has a beautiful description of what he takes to be different stages of the spiritual journey towards God. He says:
Suhrawardi in his On the Reality of Love elaborates his view on the spiritual journey. He believes that this journey and its states and stations arise from virtue (husn), love (miter) and reflective sadness (huzn). He relates virtue to the knowledge of God and love to the knowledge of self. Sadness is the outcome of the knowledge of what was not and then was.
Suhrawardi believes that knowledge of the self leads to the discovery that the self is divine and this results in loving God and having Sufi experiences. It is indeed a Qur'anic idea which is clearly and greatly emphasised by ahadith that there is a necessary relation between knowing one's self and knowing one's Lord. For example, the Prophet Muhammad said: "Whoever knows himself has known his Lord."13 Suhrawardi believes that sadness is caused by reflection on the created order which signifies separation of man and his departure from his original abode.14
According to Islam, love for God is very active and manifests itself in all aspects of one's life. It shapes all one's love and hatred. It also shapes one's behaviour with others and with one's self. In the well‑known hadith of nawafil (meaning noncompulsory good deeds) we read:
Nothing makes My servants closer to Me compared to the performance of obligatory deeds, wajibat. My servant constantly gets close to me by nawafil till I love him. When I love him, then I shall be his ears with which he listens, his eyes with which he sees, his tongue with which he speaks, and his hands with which he holds: if he calls Me, I shall answer him, and if he asks Me, I shall give him. 15
A sincere lover has no power to disobey the beloved person or to refuse h