1) FORGIVENESS AND ITS BENEFITS .2)FORGIVENES QUOTES
In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate
"May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon You"
Bismillah Walhamdulillah Was Salaatu Was Salaam 'ala Rasulillah
As-Salaam Alaykum Wa-Rahmatullahi Wa-Barakaatuh
1) FORGIVENESS AND ITS BENEFITS ON HEALTH – QURAN
One of the moral traits recommended in the Qur’an is forgiveness:
“Hold to forgiveness, command what is right, and turn away from the ignorant.” (Qur’an, 7: 199)
In another verse Allah commands: “… They should rather pardon and overlook. Would you not love Allah to forgive you? Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Qur’an, 24:22)
Those who do not abide by the moral values of the Qur’an find it very difficult to forgive others. Because, they are easily angered by any error committed. However, Allah has advised the faithful that forgiveness is more proper:
“The repayment of a bad action is one equivalent to it. But if someone pardons and puts things right, his reward is with Allah…” (Qur’an, 42:40)
“…. But if you pardon and exonerate and forgive, Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Qur’an, 64: 14)
It has also been revealed in the Qur’an that forgiveness is a superior moral trait: “But if someone is steadfast and forgives, that is the most resolute course to follow.” (Qur’an, 42:43) For that reason, believers are forgiving, compassionate and tolerant people who, as revealed in the Qur’an, “control their rage and pardon other people.” (Qur’an, 3:134)
Believers’ notion of forgiveness is very different to that of those who do not live by the morals of the Qur’an. Even though many people may say they have forgiven someone who has offended them, it nevertheless takes a long time to free themselves of the hatred and anger in their hearts. Their behaviour tends to betray that anger. On the other hand, the forgiveness of believers is sincere. Because believers know that human beings are tried in this world, and learn by their mistakes, they are tolerant and compassionate. Moreover, believers are also capable of forgiveness even when they are in the right, and the other in the wrong. When forgiving, they make no distinction between large errors and small ones. Someone may cause severe losses to them by mistake. However, believers know that everything takes place under the command of Allah, and according to a specific destiny, and therefore, they surrender themselves to these developments, never acquiescing to anger.
According to recent research, American scientists established that those capable of forgiveness are healthier in both mind and body. Dr. Frederic Luskin, who holds a Ph.D. in Counselling and Health Psychology from Stanford University, and his team, studied 259 people living in the city of San Francisco. The scientists invited the subjects to attend six one-and-a-half-hour sessions, and aimed to instruct the subjects in forgiveness during their conversations.
The subjects of the experiments stated that they suffered less after forgiving people who had wronged them. The research showed that people who learned to forgive feel much better, not only emotionally but also physically. For example, it was established that after the experiment psychological and physical symptoms such as stress-related backache, insomnia and stomachaches were significantly reduced in these individuals.
In his book, Forgive for Good, Dr. Frederic Luskin describes forgiveness as a proven recipe for health and happiness. The book describes how forgiveness promotes such positive states of mind as hope, patience and self-confidence by reducing anger, suffering, depression and stress. According to Dr. Luskin, harboured anger causes observable physical effects in the individual. He goes on to say that:
The thing about long-term or unresolved anger, is we’ve seen it resets the internal thermostat. When you get used to a low level of anger all the time, you don’t recognize what’s normal. It creates a kind of adrenaline rush that people get used to. It burns out the body and makes it difficult to think clearly-making the situation worse.
In addition, Dr. Luskin says, when the body releases certain enzymes during anger and stress, cholesterol and blood pressure levels go up-not a good long-term disposition to maintain the body in.
An article called “Forgiveness,” published in the September-October 1996 edition of Healing Currents Magazine, stated that anger towards an individual or an event led to negative emotions in people, and harmed their emotional balance and even their physical health. The article also states that people realise after a while that the anger is a nuisance to them, and wish to repair the damage to the relationship. So, they take steps to forgive. It is also stated that, despite all they endure, people do not want to waste the precious moments of their life in anger and anxiety, and prefer to forgive themselves and others.
In another study involving 1,500 people depression, stress and mental illness were observed to be less frequent in religious people. Dr. Herbert Benson, who conducted the research, linked this to the way religions encourage “forgiveness”, and went on to say:
There’s a physiology of forgiveness… When you do not forgive, it will chew you up.
According to an article titled, “Anger is Hostile To Your Heart,” published in the Harvard Gazette, anger is extremely harmful to the heart. Ichiro Kawachi, an assistant professor of medicine, and his team scientifically demonstrated this with various tests and measurements. As a result of their research, they established that grumpy old men had three times the risk of heart disease than their more tempered peers. “The tripling of risk,” Kawachi says, “involves high levels of anger, explosive anger that includes smashing things and wanting to hurt someone in a fight.”
Researchers believe that release of stress hormones, increased oxygen demand by the heart’s muscle cells, and added stickiness of blood platelets, which leads to clots explain how anger increases the chance of a heart attack. Furthermore, at times of anger, the pulse rises above its normal level, and leads to increased blood pressure in the arteries, and thus to a greater risk of heart attack.
According to researchers, anger and hostility can also trigger the production of proteins linked to inflammation in the blood. The journal Psychosomatic Medicine suggested that the emotion triggers the production of inflammatory proteins, which may in turn be causing the hardening of the arteries, causing heart disease and stroke. According to Associate Professor Edward Suarez of the Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina, the protein interleukin 6 (or IL-6) is much higher in men who are angry and depressed. High blood levels of IL-6 lead to atherosclerosis, the build-up of fatty deposits in the lining of the walls of arteries. According to Suarez, as well as factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, obesity and high cholesterol, heart disease is also linked to psychological states such as depression, anger and hostility.
Another article, titled “Anger Raises Risk of Heart Attack,” published in The Times, stated that a short temper might be a short cut to a heart attack, and that young men who reacted to stress by becoming angry were three times more likely to develop premature heart disease, and were five times more likely to have an early heart attack. Scientists at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, found that quick-tempered men are at risk of heart attack even if there is no family history of heart disease.
All the available research shows that anger is a state of mind that seriously damages human health. Forgiveness, on the other hand, even if it comes hard to people, is pleasing, an aspect of superior morals, that eliminates all the harmful effects of anger, and helps the individual to enjoy a healthy life, both psychologically and physically. Forgiveness, of course, is one of a form of behaviour by which a person can stay healthy, and a positive virtue everyone should live by. However, the true aim of forgiveness-as in all else-must be to please Allah. The fact that the features of this sort of morality, and that the benefits of which have been scientifically identified, have been revealed in many verses of the Qur’an, is just one of the many sources of wisdom it contains.
Compiled, edited and adapted by Khalid Latif
2) Forgiveness Quotes
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The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi
Forgiveness is the needle that knows how to mend.
Jewel
From her song, Under the Water.
The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.
Marianne Williamson
When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.
Catherine Ponder
Forgiveness is the oil of relationships.
Josh McDowell
The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.
Benjamin Franklin
He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Mark Twain
For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance.
Adlai Stevenson
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
Peter Ustinov
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.
Lewis B. Smedes
There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.
Bryant H. McGill
Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
Indira Gandhi
I could forgive the boy, now, if he'd committed a million sins!
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Aunt Polly about Tom in Mark Twain novel.
He who forgives ends the quarrel.
African Proverb
I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a cancelled note - torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
Henry Ward Beecher
To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.
Robert Muller
People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.
J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.
Isaac Friedmann
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
John F. Kennedy
Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.
Marlene Dietrich
Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself.
Harriet Nelson
A murder may be forgiven, an affront never.
Chinese Proverb
To your enemy, forgiveness.
To an opponent, tolerance.
To a friend, your heart.
To a customer, service.
To all, charity.
To every child, a good example.
To yourself, respect.
Oren Arnold
No matter how good you try to be to others, you will occasionally hurt them. Forgive yourself for it.
Author Unknown
If you offend, ask for a pardon; if offended forgive.
African Proverb
When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even out virtues.
Honore De Balzac
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.
Emo Philips
Depression is nourished by a lifetime of ungrieved and unforgiven hurts.
Penelope Sweet
Marriage is three parts love and seven parts forgiveness of sins.
Lao Tzu
Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.
George MacDonald
Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.
Dilbert
Men forget but never forgive. Women forgive but never forget.
Author Unknown
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
Honore de Balzac
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies.
Voltaire
To err is human, to forgive divine.
English Proverb
Young men forgive old men never.
French Proverb
He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.
George Herbert
Yes, this is what good is: to forgive evil. There is no other good.
Antonio Porchia
Voces.
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin
Life is too short, so kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly.
Author Unknown
You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.
Albert Camus
It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
William Blake
Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.
William Arthur Ward
The iPhone is the most sophisticated, outlook-challenging piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles.
David Pogue
US technology writer as Apple's new iPhone hits US shelves June 2007.
The Irish forgive their great men when they are safely buried.
Irish Proverb
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
Peter Ustinov
The mother is everything - she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.
Kahlil Gibran
Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them women will forgive them everything, even their gigantic intellects.
Oscar Wilde
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.
Mother Teresa
Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
Paul Boese
No eternal reward will forgive us now
For wasting the dawn.
Jim morrison
From The Wasp.
God will forgive me. That's his job, after all.
Author Unknown
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde
A Woman of No Importance.
It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
Author Unknown
To err is human, to forgive highly unlikely.
Author Unknown
It seems that most people need to experience a great deal of suffering before they will relinquish resistance and accept — before they will forgive.
Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now.
I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
Jane Austin
Elizabeth about Darcy, in Pride and Prejudice.
The press is ferocious. It forgives nothing, it only hunts for mistakes . . . In my position anyone sane would have left a long time ago.
Princess Diana
We insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again.
The offender never forgives.
Russian Proverb
His craving for forgiveness, and his abasement before her was the greatest satisfaction she knew, although she despised him for it.
Doris Lessing
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
Madeline L'Engle
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Plato
A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there's no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it's an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.
Henrik Ibsen
The Wild Duck.
What we forgive too freely doesn't stay forgiven.
Mignon McLaughlin
The Neurotic's Notebook.
To forgive all is as inhuman as to forgive none.
Seneca
Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.
Sara Paddison
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
Thomas S. Szasz
We achieve inner health only through forgiveness - the forgiveness not only of others but also of ourselves.
Joshua Loth Liebman
Verily God hath one hundred loving kindnesses; one of which he hath sent down amongst man, quadrupeds, and every moving thing upon the face of the earth: by it they are kind to each other, and forgive one another; and by it the animals of the wilds are kind to their young; and God hath reserved ninety-nine loving kindnesses by which he will be gracious to His creatures on the last day.
Muhammad
It's far easier to forgive an enemy after you've got even with him.
Olin Miller
The secret of forgiving everything is to understand nothing.
George Bernard Shaw
Without forgiveness life is governed by... an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.
Roberto Assagioli
Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do.
Bible
St. Luke, 23. 34.
God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness.
Henry Ward Beecher
Let us forgive each other - only then will we live in peace.
Leo Tolstoy
There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
Josh Billings
Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule.
Lewis B. Smedes
Most of us can forgive and forget; we just don't want the other person to forget that we forgave.
Ivern Ball
The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.
William Blake
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?
Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Bible
St Matthew, 18. 21.
You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.
Jane Austin
Pride and Prejudice.
When a deep injury is done us, we never recover until we forgive.
Alan Paton
Forgiveness means letting go of the past.
Gerald Jampolsky
One thing you will probably remember well is any time you forgive and forget.
Franklin P. Jones
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
The Lord's Prayer
To forgive is human, to forget divine.
James Grand
You will know that forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to wish them well.
Lewis B. Smedes
Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again.
St. Augustine
Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness.
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.
Dag Hammarskjold
Without forgiveness, there's no future.
Desmond Tutu
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Compiled, edited and adapted by Khalid Latif
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