What is repentance? Repentance is to review one's actions and feel remorseful or to regret for past wrong deeds/or wrong doings. From Islamic point of view and Islamic belief, every human being commits one or more sins either intentionally or by mistake, during his life time and he/she must repent from and seek forgiveness from Allah before his/her life comes to its end. I may not be able to explain this very important topic deeply and in as much detail as possible here within this blog, but I shall try to give some bullet points in this regard according to Islamic teachings and belief.
There are two types of “Tawba” (repentance) and two types of sins that a man may have done and should repent to Allah and seek His forgiveness from all the sins done:
The first type is the sin which is between the man and his Lord “Allah”, if the Sin is between the sin doer and his Lord (Allah) and is not related to the rights of other human being, then it will be accepted under the following 3 conditions:
- Amputate from the sin and leave it
- To regret from the sin done
- Never return again to do or think of doing the sin and if any one of the mentioned conditions is neglected, the repentance will not be accepted.
The second type is that If the sin relates to the right of another human being, then in this case there are 4 conditions under which the repentance will be accepted as follows:
- All three conditions mentioned above
- Try to return back the right of that person and persuade him/her and apology for it, meaning that if it is property/belongings of him/her, should return it back as quickly as possible, or if it is calumny/false accusation done on that person, must be ready for Islamic penance, or to request forgiveness from the accused person, or if the sin is backbiting (backbitten that person), should go and pardon for it from that person and to be remorseful from all the sins done.
There are verses of the Holy Quran in this regard, some of which I shall quit as follows:
“Surah An-noor 31” ((And all of you beg Allah to forgive you all, O believers, that you may be successful)).
“Surah Hood 3” And (commanding you) ((“Seek” the forgiveness of your Lord, and turn to Him in repentance)).
“Surah At-Tahrim “ ((O you who believe (Turn to Allah with sincere repentance! It may be that your Lord will Expiate from you your sins.
“Tawba” Repentance is the only way to save one from punishment by the Lord of this world and Hereafter. There are “Hadith” Sayings of the Holy Prophet narrated and we shall look into some of them as follows:
From Hazrati Abu – Huraira it is narrated: He says that I have heard from the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace & Blessings of Allah be up on him), the Holy Prophet says, I swear in “Allah” that I turn to him in repentance and seek forgiveness from him on daily basis more than seventy 70 times”.
There many sayings of the Holy prophet in this regard, but we can’t write all of them here.
But One can very easily judge for him/herself that if the Prophet of Allah seeks forgiveness, then what will be our situation and have we ever thought about what we have done so far and what we are doing? Aren’t we going from this world, facing another one? Do you think human being has been created just in vain?
