– “my extravagance in my own affairs”: stepping beyond the limits in every matter; here it specifically means excess in sinning and multiplying those sins.
– “and that of which You have fuller knowledge than I”: that is, Allah has appointed angels over His servants to record every misdeed of word and deed. The Exalted said, “Indeed, it is We who give life to the dead, and We record what they send ahead and their traces; and everything We have enumerated in a clear register” (36:12). He also said, “On the Day when Allah resurrects them all, He will inform them of what they did. Allah had kept a full account of it while they had forgotten it, and Allah is Witness over all things” (58:6). Thus the servant begs his Lord to forgive the sins he knows, the sins he has forgotten, and every sin Allah knows, has counted, and preserved in His record.
– “forgive my seriousness and my jest”: seriousness refers to diligence and earnest attention to a matter, while jest is its opposite—what one does without seriousness.
– “my mistakes and my intentional sins”: a mistake is whatever a person commits unintentionally; an intentional sin is a deed done knowingly and willfully.
– “O Allah, forgive me what I have sent ahead and what I have left behind”: the past sins for which one now seeks forgiveness are obvious. As for the later sins, one view is that Allah preserves the person so that no sin occurs from him for the rest of his life; another is that Allah will not hold him accountable for future sins, guiding him instead to a repentance that erases them.
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar composed a treatise entitled Al-Khiṣāl al-Mukaffirah li-l-Dhunūb (The Traits That Expunge Sins), in which he gathered the hadiths promising forgiveness of “past and future” sins, documented their chains, and verified them.
– “You are the Advancer”: You advance whom You will among Your creation, gracing him with qualities of perfection and enabling him to realize the realities of servitude by Your divine aid.
– “You are the Delayer”: You hold back whom You will among Your creation, forsaking him and distancing him from the ranks