من يهد الله فهو المهتد
“He whom Allah guides is the [rightly] guided” – Surat Al Kahf
“مَنْ يَهْدِ اللَّهُ فَهُوَ الْمُهْتَدِ” -سورة الكهف
I recently came to learn about an interesting observation on this part of the verse that draws a smile on my face every time I come across it. And that makes me fall even more in love with the way this Book is beautifully written.
The full version of the word “guided” in Arabic is usually “المهتدي”, and yet God refers to that whom He guides here as “المهتد”; omitting the last letter. One of the reasons behind it, on this particular verse, is it signifies the incompleteness – or rather the “expected imperfection” of such guidance. Certainly none that has to do with God’s guidance itself, but rather His extremely lenient expectation of us as we seek and receive such guidance; we will never be *perfect* worshippers. We aren’t even expected to be. We will constantly need to go back again for more. Perfection was and will never be part of the equation. We will make mistakes. We are *expected* to make mistakes. We will fall back into even more sins along the way. We are expected to sin and repent again and again. Even the Prophet (PBUH) reminds us through another extremely reassuring Hadith: “If you do not commit sins, Allah would replace you with people who‘d commit sins and seek forgiveness from Allah; and He will certainly forgive them.”
He simply expects us to slip, then find our way again; something that humans themselves rarely accept from one another. Something that humans rarely even accept from their own selves. We get so easily irritated when we can’t attain perfection. We slip once, then totally give up on trying ever again. We beat ourselves up for every failed attempt, when all He wants is to willingly and constantly forgive. So let’s not forget we always have another chance. He’s always there to guide us back no matter how far we’ve gone. We just need to start somewhere.
