20 – Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān related to us; Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad related to us; Shaybān transmitted from Nuʿaym ibn Abī Hind, from Ibrāhīm, from al-Aswad and ʿAlqama, from ʿAbd Allāh, who said:
“I know of two verses in the Book of Allah: no servant ever recites them when he has fallen into sin and then seeks Allah’s pardon without Allah forgiving him ⦗47⦘.”
We asked, “Which two verses in the Book of Allah?” He did not tell us. So we opened the Muṣḥaf. We read al-Baqarah but found nothing. Then we read al-Nisāʾ—according to ʿAbd Allāh’s arrangement it comes next—and we reached this verse:
“Whoever does evil or wrongs his own soul, then seeks Allah’s forgiveness, he will find Allah Forgiving, Merciful” (al-Nisāʾ 4:110).
I said, “Hold on to this one.”
Next, in Āl ʿImrān we came to the passage that says:
“and they do not persist in what they have done while they know” (Āl ʿImrān 3:135) to the end of the verse.
We then closed the Muṣḥaf and reported the two verses to ʿAbd Allāh, and he said, “These are the two.”