Istighfar

Istighfar is the seeking of God's forgiveness, most often through the formula astaghfirullah, I ask forgiveness of God, recited after the prayers, at the close of gatherings, and as a constant devotional practice. The Quran repeatedly commends the seeking of forgiveness and holds out God's readiness to forgive those who turn to him, and the tradition presents the frequent asking of pardon as a mark of the devout, following the example attributed to the Prophet, who is reported to have sought forgiveness many times a day though held to be without sin.

As dhikr it keeps the worshipper mindful of their dependence on God's mercy and of the need continually to return to him, and in Sufi practice it forms part of the litanies of repentance. To make istighfar is to acknowledge one's shortcomings and to trust in a forgiveness the tradition presents as always available to the one who sincerely asks.

Hadith reports have the Prophet stating that he sought forgiveness a large specific number of times each day, with figures of seventy and, in another widely cited report, a hundred appearing in different narrations, despite theological consensus in Sunni Islam that prophets are protected from major sin. Commentators reconcile the apparent tension by reading the practice as a model of humility and constant God consciousness rather than as evidence of actual wrongdoing requiring pardon, istighfar functioning for an already sinless figure as an expression of creaturely dependence rather than as remedial confession, and this reading is what licenses ordinary believers to recite it as routine spiritual practice rather than only after a specific transgression.

Its transmission today runs through both structured and unstructured channels: recited a fixed number of times after each of the five daily prayers as part of the standard post prayer dhikr sequence alongside tasbih and takbir, and also used far more informally, muttered after any lapse, minor or major, real or merely feared, throughout the day. This double use, formal counted repetition on the one hand and spontaneous, situational utterance on the other, distinguishes istighfar from formulas like the tasbih of Fatima, which are tied to one specific prescribed count and occasion, and reflects how the concept of turning back to God after error is treated in Islamic devotional life as continuous rather than confined to any single ritual moment.