It also demonstrates how greatly the servant needs to seek Allah’s aid, rely upon Him, and turn to Him—asking Him to enable him to obey Him and keep him from disobeying Him. The servant has no power to attain this except through Allah’s grace toward him and His assistance. For one who has tasted the bitterness of trial and experienced his inability to repel it except through Allah’s grace and mercy will have a far deeper heartfelt awareness of his utter dependence upon his Lord and his need for Him to help him obey Him and keep him from disobeying Him than someone who has not undergone the same experience.

For this reason, one of them said:

“After his repentance, David—peace and blessings of Allah be upon him—was better than he had been before the sin.”

Another said:

“Had repentance not been the most beloved of all things to Him, He would not have tested the most honored of His creatures with sin.”

Thus, you find that the sincere penitent is more steadfast in obedience, more eager to pursue it, and more wary of sin than many who have never been tested by sin. This is illustrated by the hadith of Usāmah ibn Zayd in the two Sahih collections. After he killed a man who had declared, “There is no deity worthy of worship but Allah,” the Prophet—peace and blessings of Allah be upon him—said:

“Did you kill him after he had declared, ‘There is no deity worthy of worship but Allah’?” (1)

This affected him so profoundly that he thereafter refrained from killing anyone who made this declaration. It was also one of the reasons he abstained from fighting during the civil strife.

Repentance may also bring about for a person righteous deeds that are not attained by one who has not, as he has, become (repentant) of sin (2). This is illustrated by the hadith of Ka‘b ibn Mālik—may Allah be pleased with him—in the two Sahih collections. He was one of the three concerning whom Allah revealed: