Better After the Mistake

Allah (swt) says: fa-ghafarnā lahu dhālik — We forgave him — wa inna lahu ʿindanā la-zulfā wa ḥusna maʾāb — and for him is a near access to Us and a good place of final return. After that, Allah (swt) says: yā Dāwūdu innā jaʿalnāka khalīfah — O Dāwūd, We are appointing you as a khalīfah, a successor over mankind. When did this happen? After Dāwūd went through the test.

So the scholars say something interesting. They say that the Dāwūd after the mistake was better than the Dāwūd before the mistake. Even though he committed a mistake, Dāwūd (peace be upon him) after the mistake was better than Dāwūd (peace be upon him) before the mistake. If we learn from our mistakes, we improve through our mistakes — because now Dāwūd learned the right way to judge: to be patient, and to listen to both sides, and not to be hasty in his judgement. And that qualified him to be king over mankind.

Tawbah, repentance to Allah, can make us better. Why? Because Allah (swt) says:

The ones who repent, and believe in Allah, and do good deeds — Allah (swt) will change their bad deeds into good ones. Not only will Allah clear your account so that you start with a zero balance; not only that, but your previous sins will turn into good deeds. So the evil — imagine it — this dirt, this dirt that you have in your past, will turn into pure gold. Tawbah — that is tawbah: learning from mistakes. But we need to repent. Dāwūd asked Allah for forgiveness, and Allah forgave him, and he became better.

The same thing with Ādam (peace be upon him). He became a prophet — when did he become a prophet? Before the mistake or after? He became a prophet after he committed his mistake, which brought us down from Paradise; he became a prophet after that. So we learn from our mistakes. But if we continue making mistakes, and we do not get the lesson and we do not get the point, and we fail from test to test, we do not benefit anything, and we become worse. The point is to learn, and to benefit from the experiences that we have.