Repentance is Sweet

A tyrant ruler once left his castle to walk around the streets of his realm in order to enjoy himself. As he was walking, he came across a number of gardens and decided to enter one of them. After spending a short while looking at the garden’s beautiful trees, he became thirsty, and so he asked the owner of the garden, who was sitting nearby, for a drink. The owner told him that though there was no water nearby, the ruler was free to take a pomegranate and quench his thirst with that. The ruler agreed, and when he took his first bite from the pomegranate that was given to him, he was amazed to see how wonderfully and almost unnaturally sweet it was. He said to himself, “This pomegranate is indeed wonderful.”

He decided to evict the owner and take possession of the garden. But first, he wanted to make sure that all of the pomegranates of the garden were equally wonderful and sweet, and so he asked for another one. When he began to eat a second pomegranate, he was shocked to see that it was very bitter and foul tasting.

He asked the owner if it was from the same tree as the first pomegranate. “Yes,” said the owner.

“Then how come it is not as sweet as the first?”

“O leader, perhaps you intended to do some evil, which caused its taste to change,” said the righteous garden owner.

“By Allah, the man has spoken the truth,” thought the ruler. He repented from his intention to usurp the garden, and decided he wanted to enjoy another pomegranate, and so he asked for one. When he tasted it, it was even sweeter than the first one he had eated. What is more, it was from the very same tree.

“And Seek ye the forgiveness of your Lord, and turn to Him in repentance; that He may grant you enjoyment, good (and true), for a term appointed, and bestow His abounding grace on all who abound in merit!…” (Surah Hud 11:3)

Source : Stories of Repentance – by Muhammad Abduh Mughawiri