Imagine if we woke up every morning to find that the sins which we had perpetrated during the night were written all over our front door, advertised for the entire world to witness. Wouldn’t we be horrified? In fact, we would feel so disgraced that we wouldn’t know where to hide our faces! If we reflect over this, we will realize that it is only out of His infinite kindness that Allah Ta‘ala conceals our sins.
Let us next imagine that we go out of our way, sacrificing our wealth, time and energy, to do someone a favour. Instead of expressing appreciation, this person takes the very same favour and throws it back into our face. Will we appreciate this? Never! Furthermore, we will not feel happy to do a favour for this person in the future.
Similarly, Allah Ta‘ala preserves our dignity and conceals our sins from people in this world. However, the ‘appreciation’ we show for this invaluable bounty is that we take photos of our sins and post them online for all to ‘admire’, we video ourselves ‘caught in the act’ and even distribute the evidence of our sins and we use social media to keep all updated on our latest disobedience. This advertising of our sin is actually worse than the initial sin itself!
If we advertise only those sins that suit us, then remember that there are two angels that are perpetually recording all our deeds. Let it not be that Allah Ta‘ala exposes their complete, unedited records of our sins before the entire congregation of humanity on the Day of Qiyaamah, before our loved ones, grandchildren and most importantly – before Nabi (sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam).
If we wish Allah Ta‘ala’s forgiveness and favour, in this world and on the Day of Qiyaamah, let us at least express sincere shame and regret over our sins and repent to Him instead of tearing the veil He has placed over our sins.