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Official Organ of an American Muslim in Malaysia

Doa Taubat

5 April 2008 22 Comments

Al-I'tiraf, courtesy of Anak Alam, who advises that ' for the first star *, the correct lyrics is: wa dhanbi zaa-idun kaifah timaali; for the second star *, change it to: fa in taghfir fa anta lidhaaka ahlun'

One famous prayer of repentance, or dua taubat, could be roughly transliterated as follow:

Ilahi lestu lil-firdawsi a’la

wa la akhwa ala nar il-jaheemi

Allah fa habli tawbata wa-ghfir dhunubi

fa innaka ghaafiru dhanb il-adzimi

This doa has been put to song, together with a lovely malay translation, by Junied, a nasheed group from Singapore associated with the Madrasah Aljunied Al-Islamiah. Madrasah Aljunied is a famous madrasah, having produced many notable scholars over the course of its nearly one hundred years, including the present Mufti of Sarawak, if I’m not wrong. It is now absorbed into the national education system, so the national curriculum is taught together with the religious sciences. You can learn more about how Singapore has absorbed the madrasah schools into their national model here at MUIS.

You can download the Doa Taubat from their website, along with several other songs. There are video recordings available on YouTube as well. According to their site, they have a new album called “Hijrah” available in stores. Unfortunately, googling around did not readily turn up a merchant site. Anyone who knows where to get a copy of the album can let me know in the comments.

The group’s recording of the Doa Taubat can be found all over, but the website of the group itself I couldn’t find after half an hour of searching. It’s puzzling too, because I found it once before a few months ago. A recording of the Doa Taubat is available to download on the site, but since I can’t locate it, I’m putting my copy here for download. It’s very nice; you should listen. I’ll take it down and link to theirs as soon as I locate their site again or some kind soul sends me the link.

The song is in Arabic and Malay, so I decided to do a rough English translation which you can find below. It’s not an exact translation: I tried to keep to the flow of the original so it could conceivably be sung in the same tune, but that meant I had to play loose with the meaning. Here it is; comments welcome as always.

Arabic:
Ilahi lestu lil-firdawsi a’la

wa la akhwa ala nar il-jaheemi

Allah fa habli tawbata wa-ghfir dhunubi

fa innaka ghaafiru dhanb il-adzimi

Malay:

tuhanku aku tidak layak / untuk syurga mu

tetapi aku tidak pula sanggup menanggung / siksa neraka mu

dari itu kurnia kan lah / ampunan kepada ku / ampun kan lah dosa ku

sesungguhnya / engkaulah penggampun / dosa dosa besar

English:

Oh my Lord I know I don’t deserve / your heaven

And yet your blazing wrath / I could never defend

So Lord rain down upon / this lowly soul / your forgiveness

Lord you and you alone / forgive and wash away / the most greivous sins

Update

Anak Alam has graciously provided the full dua, which includes two more stanzas, in Arabic and Malay. A translation of the second two stanzas would be something like:

My sins are countless as the sands on the shore /
Accept my repentance, O Lord of Majesty/
For my life grows shorter with each day/
While my sins increase with each passing moment

O my Lord, Your sinful servant approaches You/
Continuously sinning while steadfastly beseeching You/
If You forgive, You are most capable of doing so/
And if You forsake me, then to whom else can I turn…

22 Comments »

Grant Rettke said:

When folks take a prayer of repentance and put it to a very pleasant song, what is the environment/context in which you would listen to it?

# 5 April 2008 at 9:02 pm

Bin Gregory (author) said:

This style of music – nasheed – is religious music and plugs into life here in a way not unlike Gospel in the States. It is often performed at religious functions, like this one at my local mosque after the month of Ramadan, or at religious conferences or assemblies. Nasheed does get a bit of play on the radio, on the Islamic channel, where it may come off a bit incongruous I suppose, if you tuned it in when you weren’t feeling particularly prayerful at the time. But even then, if it brings somebody back to a God-conscious frame of mind in the middle of their work day, I’d say that’s a good thing.

# 5 April 2008 at 9:22 pm

JDsg said:

A sample of the song, at least, can be found here. Not that I really went out looking for it, ya know? I just happened to see that the school had a choir website and I thought it’d be interesting to see it.

# 6 April 2008 at 9:42 am

JDsg said:

Note to self: listen first, then write. What I linked to above is a sample of the song you linked to in your post, but it’s substantially different from your version. This one runs for only two minutes, has an instrumental introduction, and is sung at a slower pace. So keep your version up a little bit longer, OK?

# 6 April 2008 at 9:54 am

Bin Gregory (author) said:

Yeesh, why could I not locate that yesterday? Junied.net – you’d think that would come up on a search for madrasah aljunied… Thanks, JD. I’m going to add that in up above; maybe that’ll help drum up a bit of publicity for their site.

# 6 April 2008 at 1:27 pm

Diana said:

Assalammualaikum,

Isn’t the song also sang by Raihan?

Correct me if I am wrong.

# 7 April 2008 at 9:28 am

Bin Gregory (author) said:

w/s

Yes, they have a version called “Iktiraf”. The malay translation in that song is slightly different from the Junied version, and there is an extra set of verses too. Here’s a youtube version upped by our good friend Tawel Sensei.

# 7 April 2008 at 8:44 pm

Irving said:

The English translation is really heart stirring and beautiful Thank you for translating it, dear Brother

Ya Haqq!

# 14 April 2008 at 2:55 am

prncess afnapana said:

hmmm

# 19 April 2008 at 8:09 pm

prncess afnapana said:

i like this songs because i and my team like and i hope i win at ……

# 19 April 2008 at 8:19 pm

Percicilan said:

I’m a Singaporean based in KL and I do have the CD with me. Do you want one?

# 10 May 2008 at 10:01 am

Nizar said:

I mistakenly typed http://bengregory.com/ to go to your site. I thought it was you when you were young! He does have some similarities to you!

# 10 May 2008 at 10:20 pm

Nizar said:

I like Sami Yusuf

# 10 May 2008 at 10:23 pm

nnydd said:

Totally unrelated, but I just read Other Malaysia’s post that you linked to here. Certainly what he complaint about is shared by many!!

# 15 May 2008 at 12:17 pm

Ahmad Dhuat said:

Uhibbukafillah

# 18 May 2008 at 4:47 pm

ashraf said:

Do you have any idea where i can get original version like those in mosque, like it better as a bit less of romantisism

# 31 May 2008 at 8:28 pm

bahanji said:

Assalamualaikum,
Does anyone know the sufi master that wrote the dua taubat. I have seen it somewhere, but as usual when I needed it I couldn’t find it. Can anyone help me please!
Jazakallah…

# 17 June 2008 at 9:32 am

Percicilan said:

bahanji,
the sufi who wrote the doa taubat is Abu Nawas…

# 21 June 2008 at 10:20 pm

Haniffa said:

Assalamualaikum

Does any1 know where to get this dua….in arabic script online? Thank You.

Wassalam

# 1 August 2009 at 11:20 pm

nnydd said:

Here it is Haniffa: http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5033/iktirafjs5.jpg

# 3 August 2009 at 10:14 pm

nnydd said:

Haniffa: for the first star *, the correct lyrics is: wa dhanbi zaa-idun kaifah timaali

for the second star *, change it to: fa in taghfir fa anta lidhaaka ahlun

# 3 August 2009 at 10:23 pm

finderman said:

sebhanallah…
it’s a symbol fo us that we are nothing than Allah

# 21 December 2009 at 12:12 pm

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