He is the one who accepts repentance and forgives. If one is guilty of the disruption of harmony within oneself and around oneself, which is perhaps the greatest sin, and one realizes, wills and begs Allah's help not to do it again, if one begs with tears of shame and asks Allah al-Ghaffar for forgiveness, Allah will forgive one and perhaps transform one's sin into a good deed.
A sinner is like a poor fellow who has fallen into a sewer. What is the first thing that he must do? He cannot face others in that state, nor can he stand himself. He must wash and cleanse himself, unless he is insane, not realizing his offensive state. The soap and water with which to wash one's interior is repentance. Woe to those who do not see nor smell the dirty stench filling their interiors!
Repentance is between each person and Allah; no one else need hear it. It need not even be pronounced. Allah knows what passes through one's heart. Repentance must also be accompanied by a firm intention not to do the sinful act again. The sign of acceptance of your repentance and the accordance of forgiveness by Allah al-Ghaffar, is that He will not let you repeat that sinful act again.
'Abd al-Ghaffar is the one who is given the quality of forgiving a fault, of covering and hiding a fault from others, of having the compassion of not seeing a fault as a fault. He does this in cases and to persons whom Allah, the Forgiver, has forgiven.1
AL-GHAFFAR - The Very Forgiving One
Al-Ghaffar is the One who makes manifest what is noble and veils what is disgraceful. The sins (of man) are among the disgraceful things which He veils by placing a veil upon them in this world and disregarding their punishment in the hereafter. Al-Ghafr means veiling. The first of God's veils for man is to be found in the fact that the opening in his body that has been created for that which his eyes consider ugly has been hidden within him and is concealed within the beauty of his exterior. How great is the difference between the interior of man and his exterior in terms of cleanliness and dirtiness, and ugliness and beauty! Just look at that part of him which God exposes and that part which He covers!
God's second veil for man is the human heart which He has made the seat of his reprehensible thoughts and disgraceful desires so that no one might know about this veil. If mankind were aware of the things that occurred in (a man's) mind in terms of repeated temptations, thoughts of corruption, deception and evil thinking in general, certainly they would detest him. But behold how his secrets and weaknesses are veiled from all people but himself!
God's third veil for man is the forgiveness of the sins for which he deserved to be disgraced in the sight of mankind. God has promised that He will exchange good deeds for man's misdeeds so that he might cover the repulsive qualities of his sins with the reward of his good deeds when he has proved his faith.
An Admonition: Man's portion of this name lies in his veiling for the next man that part of him which needs to be veiled. (Muhammad) said - may the peace of God be upon him - "The one who veils the imperfections of a believer, his imperfections will God cover on the day of the resurrection". The slanderer, the spy, the avenger and the one who requites evil with evil are far removed from this characterization. However, the one who is characterized by it is the one who does not divulge anything about God's creation except those things which are best in them. There is no creature totally free from perfection and imperfection, from ugliness and beauty. The one who disregards the repulsive qualities and remembers the good ones is the person who possesses a share of this name, even as it is related of Jesus - may peace be upon him - that he and his disciples passed by a dead dog, and the stench of it was over-powering. His disciples exclaimed, "How this corpse smells!" But Jesus - may peace be upon him - replied "How lovely is the white of his teeth!" In this way he pointed out that they ought to mention only that which is good.2