91 – Al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to me; he said that Ibn al-Simāk declared:

“Blessed are You, O Majestic One! If the acts of disobedience with which I have offended You were instead deeds of obedience performed for Your sake, they still would not surpass the blessings You bestow. Indeed, You go on increasing Your kindness toward us until it is as though the very wrongs we commit were themselves acts of goodness. The multitude of our offences does not make You cease Your beneficence toward us, nor does the abundance of Your beneficence move us to abandon our offences. Night after night You deal with us in nothing but graciousness and generosity, while we respond with nothing but wrongdoing and sin. Who, then, can ever count Your favors or render You due thanks except through the success and bounty You Yourself grant?

I have reflected on the obedience of the obedient and discovered that Your mercy precedes their obedience; were it not so, they would never have attained it. Therefore we beseech You by that mercy which goes before the obedience of those who obey, for the sake of the grace You thereby extend to the disobedient after their disobedience.”