Be Thankful and I will give You increase in Blessings

“And   remember  when  Your   Lord   proclaimed,  ‘If  you   give thanks will  give  you  increase in  blessings, but  if you  deny the favours and  are thankless, then I shall punish you  severely."  [Soorah Ibraheem (14):  7]

So  the  servant must give thanks to  Allah  for  His  favours  with  his heart, his  tongue and  his  actions. He praises and gives thanks for the blessing and he expresses his thanks by obedience to Allah.

With respect to the saying of the Prophet (Peace be upon him) "I admit my sin..." the people of knowledge mention two meanings. The first of these is, ‘I admit my sin in not fully giving thanks for Your favors,’ and since, ‘I admit my sin  ...' immediately follows the sentence, "I acknowledge Your favors upon me  ..." it means, ‘My sin in falling short ...' - ‘I admit that I fall short in giving thanks for Your favors.'

The  other explanation is that his  saying, ‘I confess  my  sin...'  may mean, ‘I confess  all  my  sins,'  unrestrictedly, that is,  all my  acts  of disobedience and  every sin that I have committed.

By this  admission that he has sinned, the  servant acknowledges that he  has  fallen  short with  regard  to  Allah's  rights  upon him;  that he has  not performed Allah's  rights  as he  should. It is this acknowledgement that is the beginning of the road to repentance. However, if he commits acts of disobedience and falls   into destructive  sins, yet does not  feel  that he is  a sinner,  then repentance is something far away from  him  unless  he is guided  to its causes  and  granted the  success  of being  put  upon its path.

So  there are  two  meanings of his  saying,  "I confess  my  sins  ..." and perhaps the  more  correct of the  two, and  Allah  knows  best, is the second. The servant’s admission of having sinned and fallen short; having    erred    and    been    deficient should lead to his seeking forgiveness and this is the core meaning of the hadeeth.

Then,  his   saying,   "I  acknowledge  Your   favours   upon  me   and   I confess   my   sins..."  contains  an   indication  of  a  matter that  is mentioned by the people of knowledge. It is that the servant, in this life, continually passes back and forth throughout the day and the night between two affairs.  These  are either a blessing  newly  granted to him  by Allah,  and  all blessings  are from  Allah,  and  this  requires that he  gives  thanks.  Alternatively, he falls into a sin and   this requires him to repent and to seek forgiveness. Therefore some  of the Salaf  used  to say, ‘I enter the morning in between blessings  and sins,  so  I  want   to  put   forth thanks for  the  blessings and  to  seek forgiveness for the sins.

A further point of great benefit to be taken from  the  hadeeth is that, whatever sin the servant has committed, if he acknowledges the fact that  he   has   sinned  and   then   truly  repents, Allah  accepts  his repentance, whatever the  sin,  and   forgives  him. This meaning is clearly stated in another hadeeth, the long  hadeeth of  the doubt (al-Ifk)', and  the evidence here  is the saying  of  the Prophet (Peace be upon him),  "If the   servant  acknowledges  his   sin   and   repents,  then  Allah accepts his  repentance."

Then his saying  at  the end  of the hadeeth of Shaddaad ibn  Aws, "None  forgives  sins except You," is an acknowledgement that Allah Alone  is  the One  who  forgives  sins,  and  that He  is  the One  who accepts repentance from  His  servants. Therefore the servant turns - in repentance, obedience, seeking forgiveness and pardon - to Allah Alone, since none forgives sins except Him.

Amongst the benefits to be obtained from the explanation and clarification of this hadeeth is that it makes apparent to us the fact that it contains two affairs:  Tawheed and at-Istighfaar (seeking forgiveness). These two  are  the  greatest and   most   important  of affairs  and  they are similarly combined in many texts of the Book  of Allah  and  the  Sunnah of  His  Prophet (Peace be upon him).