40 Rabbana Duas

Dua 36

رَبَّنَا اغْفِرْ لَنَا وَلِإِخْوَانِنَا الَّذِينَ سَبَقُونَا بِالْإِيمَانِ وَلَا تَجْعَلْ فِي قُلُوبِنَا غِلًّا لِّلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا

Rabbana-ghfir lana wa li 'ikhwani nalladhina sabaquna bil imani wa la taj'al fi qulubina ghillal-lilladhina amanu

Word By Word:

Rabbana: Our Lord

ghfir: forgive

lana: us

wa: and

li'ikhwani nal: our brothers

ladhina: who

sabaquna: preceded us 

 bil imani: in faith 

wa: and

la: not

taj'alna: put

fi: in

qulubina: our heart 

ghillal-liladhina: and rancor towards those who

amanu: believe

Translation: Our Lord! Forgive us, and our brethren who came before us into the Faith, and leave not, in our hearts, rancour (or sense of injury) against those who have believed [59:10]

Tafseer: Those that came after them: the immediate meaning would refer to later arrivals in Madinah or later accessions to Islam, compared with the early Muhajirs. But the general meaning would include all future comers into the House of Islam. They pray, not only for themselves, but for all their brethren, and above all, they pray that their hearts may be purified of any desire or tendency to disparage the work or virtues of other Muslims or to feel any jealousy on account of their successes or good fortune.

 A man who may have suffered or been disappointed may have a lurking sense of injury at the back of his mind, which may spoil his enjoyment on account of past memory intruding in the midst of felicity. In such cases memory itself is pain. Even sorrow is intensified by memory: as Tennyson says, "A sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering happier things." But that is in this our imperfect life. In the perfect felicity of the righteous, all such feelings will be blotted out. No heartaches then and no memories of them! The clouds of the past will have dissolved in glorious light, and no past happiness will be comparable with the perfect happiness which will have then been attained. Nor will any sense of envy or shortcoming be possible in that perfect bliss.