Pleading for Forgiveness
Al-Kāfi|Volume 2|Book 1|Chapter 192
6ـ عَنْهُ عَنْ أَحْمَدَ بْنِ مُحَمَّدٍ عَنِ ابْنِ فَضَّالٍ عَنْ عَلِيِّ بْنِ عُقْبَةَ بَيَّاعِ الأكْسِيَةِ عَنْ أَبِي عَبْدِ الله (عَلَيهِ السَّلام) قَالَ إِنَّ الْمُؤْمِنَ لَيُذْنِبُ الذَّنْبَ فَيُذَكَّرُ بَعْدَ عِشْرِينَ سَنَةً فَيَسْتَغْفِرُ الله مِنْهُ فَيَغْفِرُ لَهُ وَإِنَّمَا يُذَكِّرُهُ لِيَغْفِرَ لَهُ وَإِنَّ الْكَافِرَ لَيُذْنِبُ الذَّنْبَ فَيَنْسَاهُ مِنْ سَاعَتِهِ.
6. It is narrated from him (narrator of the Hadith above) from Ahmad ibn Muhammad from ibn Faddal from Ali ibn ‘Uqbah Bayya’ al-Aksiyah from Abu ‘Abdillah عليه السلام who has said the following: “A believer commits a sin and remembers it after twenty years, then he pleads before Allah for forgiveness, He still forgives him. He is made to remember so He may forgive him. An unbeliever commits a sin and forgets it within the same hour.’”
- Mirʾāt al-ʿUqūl fī Sharḥ Akhbār Āl al-Rasūl (11/309)
- Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kāfī, vol. 1, p. 130