—meaning that a kind of constriction, gloom, and the like settles over it—so I seek Allah’s forgiveness one hundred times each day. He ﷺ says, “I seek Allah’s forgiveness one hundred times a day,” and this is the Prophet whose former and latter sins were forgiven. What, then, should be expected of us? Our hearts are hard and lifeless; the sheer number of our sins no longer casts any haze over them, and scarcely one of us even gives thought to what he has done. Hence you see a person unperturbed by such matters and rarely making istighfar.

A believer, however, ought to take the Messenger of Allah ﷺ as his excellent model and engage in abundant istighfar. Ibn ʿUmar said, “We used to count for the Prophet ﷺ in a single gathering one hundred times—or more—the words, ‘Lord, forgive me and have mercy on me.’”

The Prophet ﷺ also informed us that among Allah’s favors to His servants is that when He tries them with sins and they then seek His forgiveness, He forgives them; and that if you were not to sin, Allah would remove you and bring a people who do sin, then seek His forgiveness, and He would forgive them. This is a clear encouragement for a person to seek his Lord’s pardon frequently, for by doing so he attains the rank of those who constantly seek forgiveness from Allah.

Moreover, he ﷺ said, in the report narrated by Abu Dawud, that whoever clings to istighfar, Allah will grant him a way out of every tight situation, relief from every worry, and provision from where he never imagined. Clinging to istighfar means persevering in it and making it plentiful; such a person will see his anxieties removed, his hardships eased, and his sustenance expanded, arriving from sources he could not have foreseen.

The hadiths that speak of the virtue of seeking forgiveness, praise those who practice it, and urge people toward it are many indeed.