1515 - Sulayman ibn Harb and Musaddad narrated to us, saying: Hammad narrated to us, from Thabit, from Abu Burdah, from al-Agharr al-Muzani — Musaddad said in his narration: "And he was a Companion" — who said: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "Indeed, my heart is veiled, and I seek forgiveness from Allah one hundred times every day."(1)

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Ibn Jarir al-Tabari said, after mentioning the statements of the scholars of knowledge regarding the interpretation of the saying of Allah the Exalted: {And those who, when they commit an immorality or wrong themselves, remember Allah and seek forgiveness for their sins — and who forgives sins except Allah? — and do not persist in what they did while they know} [Al 'Imran: 135]: "The most correct statement in our view is the statement of those who say: persistence (al-israr) is remaining upon the sin deliberately and abandoning repentance from it. There is no meaning to the statement of those who say that persistence upon the sin is committing it, because Allah, Glorified and Exalted, praised the abandonment of persistence upon the sin while committing the sin, saying: {And those who, when they commit an immorality or wrong themselves, remember Allah and seek forgiveness for their sins — and who forgives sins except Allah? — and do not persist in what they did while they know}. And if the one who commits the sin were considered persistent by virtue of his committing it, then there would be no comprehensible basis for seeking forgiveness, because seeking forgiveness from a sin is only repentance from it and regret over it, and no basis is known for seeking forgiveness from a sin that one has not committed. And it has been narrated from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, that he said: 'The one who seeks forgiveness is not persistent, even if he returns to it seventy times a day.' So if the one who commits the sin were persistent, then his saying, 'The one who seeks forgiveness is not persistent, even if he returns to it seventy times a day,' would have no meaning, because if committing the sin were itself the persistence, then the name that has attached to him would not acquire any additional meaning beyond it, just as repentance does not remove from the adulterer the name of adulterer, nor from the murderer the name of murderer, nor any other meaning. And it is established that this report indicates that the one who seeks forgiveness for his sin is not persistent upon it. Thus it is known by this that persistence is not the same as committing, and that it is remaining upon it, as we have stated before."

(1) Its chain of transmission is authentic. Musaddad: he is Ibn Musarhad al-Asadi, and Hammad: he is Ibn Zayd al-Azdi, and Thabit: he is Ibn Aslam al-Bunani, and Abu Burdah: he is 'Amir ibn 'Abdullah al-Ash'ari, and al-Agharr: he is Ibn Yasar al-Muzani.
Muslim also recorded it (2702) through multiple paths from Hammad, with this chain.
Muslim also recorded it (2702) via the path of 'Amr ibn Murrah from Abu Burdah, with it.