Transcription
All praise is due to Allah. We send our gratitude to Him and our thanks. May His prayers and blessings be upon His Messenger, the Messenger of Allah, his family, his companions, and all those who follow him in righteousness till the last hour.
Brothers and sisters, tonight, inshallah, we move to our next topic. Last week, we spoke about sincerity, and today, inshallah, we will discuss the next stage, which still involves the heart. We are going to talk about Toba, repentance—seeking Allah's forgiveness and returning to Allah after we have turned away from Him with sins.
My brothers and sisters, I cannot begin this topic about repentance without first discussing the nature of sins and sinful behavior in Islam. Then we will talk about the definition of what Toba, repentance, means, what its conditions are, and we will also discuss the difference between Toba and something called seeking Allah's forgiveness.
We will talk about the signs of a person who is a true repentant, the value of a repentant, and how Allah deals with this person. We will cover what happens to your past sins, how to go about fixing people's rights, and the station of people who repent on the Day of Judgment.
My brothers and sisters, I begin first of all with the following introduction: let us all be clear and aware that there isn’t a single one of us who is free of sin. We all sin. There is no one among us who is free of sinning and making mistakes, and such is the nature of the human whom Allah created.
The Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said in the authentic Hadith, Us and other books of Hadith, that every single child of Adam—All humans—sin, and the best among them who do sin are the ones who constantly repent.
If you recognize very quickly, Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam), the Messenger of Allah, our Prophet, the Last of all Messengers and Prophets, he said that those who sin—the best among them—are the ones who repent. Therefore, sinful behavior is natural, but repentance is a must. Nobody must keep themselves dirty with sins.
The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) also said that Allah said, "By the One who possesses my soul in His power, if you were not to sin, Allah would have gotten rid of you. No more humans on Earth. He would have made us all go extinct and would have brought and replaced us with a new creation—a creature who does sin and then constantly seeks Allah's forgiveness for their sins, and Allah forgives them."
The Hadith is in Sahih Muslim. If we learn anything from the original story of Prophet Adam and his wife in the Quran, when we hear the story of them eating from the forbidden tree, we find that Allah (subhanahu wa ta'ala), contrary to the beliefs in other religions about Adam and Eve and the initial sin of eating from the forbidden tree, did not tell us or show us the language of anger and punishment and destruction upon Adam and Eve.
We don't find that Allah is saying to them, "I will punish you for eating from the forbidden tree by placing you on Earth so you can suffer and go through turmoil." Absolutely not! For Allah had already told us in the Quran and the books before that He was going to create Adam and place him on Earth anyway. That was the plan.
But they had to be in Paradise for this lesson to teach us something. Among the things we learn are the following:
Number one, all human beings commit sin naturally.
Number two, if it wasn't that we did not commit sin, we would not learn the meaning of forgiveness and mercy. A relationship between you and Allah is based on going and coming back.
So we sin without meaning to do that, and sometimes we mean it out of our weakness. Then Allah says, "Come back, repent. Don't let yourself die without repenting."
The relationship between us and Allah is sometimes a back-and-forth one, and each time you return back to Allah, your Iman, your faith, and your love for Him rises.
As the poet says, "I knew about the wrong and the bad not because I want to do the wrong and the bad, but when a person knows the difference between wrong and right, then it is less likely for them to fall into the wrong."
We find that in the Quran.
Number three, when Adam sinned, Allah says, "Adam, he had learned some words from his Lord beforehand, which he used after he sinned, calling upon Allah to forgive him." So Allah forgave him.
For Allah turned to him in compassion and forgiveness, and then Allah said to him, "You are going to live on Earth for a little while, and I will be ever so with you under My watchful eyes. Be patient; you are under Our eyes."
He said this to Prophet Muhammad (alaihi wasallam) as well, and He says, "Any guidance that you receive from Me, then whoever takes My guidance, they have succeeded. But be aware of Shaitan, your enemy."
He tells the children of Adam, "Be aware of Shaitan, your enemy. He wants to lead you astray and take you out of Paradise as he took your father and mother out of Paradise," meaning he doesn't want you to go to Paradise; he wants you to go to Hellfire with him.
So take him as an enemy and do not assume of sins as anything special. We learned that Adam (alayhi salam) ate from the tree only out of curiosity and only because Shaitan (Satan) deluded him and his wife to think that there was a secret.
If they ate from the tree, they believed him when he said, "I swear by Allah that I am advising you." The cruel, criminal person always lies to you, saying, "You are going to be angels; you are going to live in eternity."
They thought, "How can one swear by God and lie?" So they ate from the tree, and no secret was there, really.
The first thing that happened to them was that their clothing came off. They were covered with light and clothing, and it came off. Therefore, it shows us that sinful behavior slowly darkens a person's heart, hardens a person's heart, and makes a person become normalized to nudity, nakedness, and lack of shame.
They normalize sinful behavior to the point where a person not only never feels guilt or shame anymore but also normalizes the point of even saying it's a good thing, it's happiness, it's what brings us joy in life to do sinful behavior. But really, it does not.
Brothers and sisters, therefore, sinful behavior is normal, but repentance is the quality of true, honorable people whom Allah has valued in the Quran and through the messengers and prophets. They are the best among people.
The repentant person is a person who has a special status with Allah, and there are many verses in the Quran that encourage us to return back to Allah and never give up hope that Allah will forgive us.
Allah says, "I am the way you assume of Me; only assume well of Allah and do not give up returning to Him." Don't ever let Shaitan and the whispers tell you that you have no hope and that you will suffer and that there is no point in returning and seeking forgiveness and changing your life, thinking that you do not deserve forgiveness.
No matter how many sins you've done in your life, and even if they reach the mountains, there is always hope. Allah is the only one who does not judge a person on their past sins when they repent.
People will continue to shame you, especially if they've got something against you or they have a superiority complex or they have some issues within their hearts, diseases to shame you about your past sins, to denigrate you.
But Allah is the only one who does not judge you based on your past sins when you return. Allah tells us in the Quran, in one of the verses which I chose, I really love this particular verse.
There are so many verses in the Quran that talk about repentance and the value of that person, but this particular one, which is in chapter 40:7-9, I found that Allah looks upon the repentant in a special way.
The angels of Allah make Dua; they supplicate to Allah for the repentant person, six different requests. They ask Allah for six different things for the person who repents.
I have not seen in the entire Quran any place where the angels supplicate and pray to Allah for the people on Earth more than this particular verse in relation to the repentant.
Allah says in this Surah:
"The angels that bear the throne and those that are around extol your Lord's glory with His praise. They believe in Him and ask forgiveness for the believers, saying, 'Our Lord, You encompass everything with Your mercy and knowledge, so forgive those that repent and follow Your path, and guard them against the chastisement of Hellfire. Our Lord, admit them to the everlasting gardens You have promised them, and those of their fathers and spouses and progeny that were righteous. Surely, You alone are the Most Mighty, Most Wise. And guard them against all ills. He whom You guard against ills on that day, to him You have surely been most merciful. That is the great triumph.'"
Six different Duas the angels make for the person who constantly repents.
My brothers and sisters, a person who constantly repents, or anytime you repent truly and sincerely, it wipes away your past sin from which you repented as if it never existed.
The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said in a Hadith in Sahih Muslim, the companion who had reverted or converted or embraced Islam, when he converted to Islam, he said, "I went to the Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) to pledge allegiance to him as my messenger."
So I withheld my hand when I was about to shake it, and the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, "Why did you withhold your hand?" He said, "I wanted to make a condition of my embracing Islam and pledging allegiance to you."
It sounds rude and disrespectful, but let's see what he said.
"What is with you that you withhold your shaking of that hand of pledging allegiance and becoming a Muslim?" He said, "I want a condition."
He said, "Condition of what?" I said, "That all my sins be forgiven, that I be forgiven."
The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, "Did you not already know that becoming a Muslim destroys everything that was before you? You are born as if you are born new, sinless and fresh."
This does not only apply for people who convert or revert, whichever word you want to use, to Islam. It also applies for every person with a sinful past who wants to change their life and seek Allah's forgiveness.
Allah does say in the Quran, in chapter 8:38, "Oh Prophet, tell the unbelievers that if they desist from evil, their past shall be forgiven. And if they revert to their past ways, then it is well known what happened with the people of the past."
This verse applies to all sinners, but in this context, it was talking about the people of Mecca—Allah telling them, the ones who fought the Prophet, the ones who wanted to kill him, the ones who killed many Muslims in many battles.
Allah says, "You still have hope and a chance."
The Messenger (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) also said, and this is authentic and unanimously agreed upon by all our scholars, that the doors of repentance are open, and you have a chance to renew your faith and repent from your past sins, no matter what they are and how much they are, so long as two things have not happened yet:
So long as the soul does not reach the gargling point, meaning upon death, and so long as the sun has not risen from where it sets.
We all know the last major signs of the end of the world, according to Islam, is that the sun will rise from the West.
My brothers and sisters, this brings me to a question before I define Toba and the conditions of it: Are we allowed to remind and shame people for their sinful past?
Especially when we hear stories about people in marriage, the husband and wife, when they have a conflict, a lot of them, through my experience, among the things they do is shame the other person with what hurts them the most.
What hurts them the most is to shame them with their past sins and mistakes, and this is definitely from Shaitan.
The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) did say, "Beware of the thing that shaves." They said, "What is the thing that shaves?"
It is the one that shaves your good deeds. It shaves all your righteous actions that you've done. It is when you cause mischief, disunity, and denigration to the Muslims, to the community, which means that you want to turn them away from the guidance by denigrating them, by shaming them, by causing fights between them and conflict in order for Shaitan to take hold of them.
When the companion of Amr entered, he used to drink alcohol, and he wanted to be whipped for his sin to be forgiven. A companion said, without thinking, that he is shameful.
"How ridiculous of him to always come back!" The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) told him, "Don't assist Shaitan against your brother."
The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, "The Muslim is the brother and sister of another Muslim. He or she does not oppress them, nor do they belittle them, and do not shame them and denigrate them."
They make them feel small and bad and worthless.
Then he said, "Piety is in here, in the heart," meaning the reason why people would do that is because your piety in your heart is diseased, and he pointed to his chest.
It is enough to be said that a Muslim becomes an evil person by denigrating and putting down his brother or sister of Muslims. Everything from Muslim towards another Muslim is forbidden—his blood, his property, and his dignity and honor.
So shaming one another about their past sins after they have repented, or even shaming them while they are sinning in a denigrating manner, both of them assist Shaitan against your brothers and sisters.
What’s worse is to shame someone for their past sins knowing it after they have repented, when Allah has raised them and given them a special place.
It is as if that person is playing—remember the Hadith I told you, which is in Allah says, "Where is this person who is taking over My own judgment?"
In other words, trying to play God. Who told you that I will not forgive this person? Who told you that I will punish this person?
Who told you? A Muslim talks in general what Allah says. Allah says, "Whoever does this, this will happen."
You can advise a person who is sinning, but to expose them and to talk about them is forbidden, and to shame somebody because of their past sins is even worse.
In fact, some scholars said it’s a major sin.
Of course, a person who is an open sinner that harms other people, you must warn other people from the open sinner.
We are not talking about an open sinner who does not care about their sins. We warn other people from sinners because they can lead them astray.
When you see, for example, a friend who is hanging out with someone else or taking them to a bad place, you warn them and you say, "Be careful of that person," and so on.
So brothers and sisters, I wanted to highlight these few points.
Now, the major point we are speaking about is Toba, repentance, and obviously, my reference is from this book by the Imam, the great Imam, based on the works of Dr. who has done extensive work on this book.
What is repentance? Therefore, how do we get out of sins and not be punished for them and accounted for them?
Do we, as Muslims, are we taught to go to the Imam or to a religious person the way other religions say, "Go and confess your sins to the priest so that your sin can be forgiven"?
For example, do you call upon saints, such as prophets and messengers or righteous people who you know own their graves? Do you call upon them and admit your sin to them to have your sin forgiven?
Do you go and tell your mom and dad or your friends because you feel a burden on yourself, so you have to tell someone or confess to people?
The answer, my brothers and sisters, is no. In fact, it is forbidden.
In some cases, the example that I gave you—confessing it to a dead person or a person you think is a saint or to the Imam, thinking that by confessing your sin, it will be forgiven—is also making partners with Allah.
Because the only one who forgives sins is Allah (subhanahu wa ta'ala). This is an action of Allah that cannot be associated with anybody.
Allah (subhanahu wa ta'ala) says, "Inform My slaves, My servants, that it is I who am the Most Merciful, the Most Forgiving."
Allah also says in the Quran, "And those who, when they do an act of indecency, sinful behavior, dirty, indecent acts, or they oppress themselves by doing sinful acts from other types of sins, they remember Allah immediately. When they remember Allah, they seek Allah's forgiveness for their sins."
And who is there other than Allah who forgives sins? No one other than Allah has the power and the right to forgive sins on one condition: that they do not insist on purposefully repeating again and again those sins while they know that they are sinful and while they are aware and not insane or forced or pressured.
My brothers and sisters, therefore, repentance to Allah is the way out of all sins.
Repentance literally means to return back to Allah after turning away as a result of one or many disobediences and sins that Allah had forbidden—major sins, minor sins, all types.
That is Toba, repentance, and we are to explain its conditions.
The second word is called seeking Allah's forgiveness. These are two different meanings.
In Sahih Muslim, it says, "I heard the Messenger of Allah saying, 'By Allah, I seek Allah's forgiveness and repent to Him more than 70 times a day.'"
In another Hadith, "More than 100 times a day." Did you notice?
The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) says, "I seek Allah's forgiveness and repent." That means they are not exactly the same thing.
What is the difference between repenting to Allah and seeking His forgiveness?
Toba means to return to Allah with four conditions, and we are going to explain this.
The first condition is to stop the sin that you were doing. Stop. Turn away from it.
Number two, to regret the sin that you were doing.
Number three, to make an honest and firm determination, a promise to Allah that you will not return to it.
Number four is a special case only involving people's rights. The first three are Allah's rights. If you want to add a fourth one, it's people's rights.
If you owe people something that you took away from them, their rights, then you have to fix it.
So three conditions which do not involve Allah's rights and a fourth condition which involves people's rights.
We are going to come back to explain each one of those four.
Secondly, seeking Allah's forgiveness—seeking Allah's forgiveness is not that you necessarily have repented.
Seeking Allah's forgiveness means, "Oh Allah, cover up my sin and don't expose me, and don't punish me."
Both of them come hand in hand together. You cannot repent without seeking forgiveness and seek forgiveness without repentance.
So seeking Allah's forgiveness means, "Oh Allah, cover my sin and don't expose me."
Some scholars, other than Imam Nawawi, did have the view that you can ask Allah for forgiveness, meaning to cover up your sin and not expose you in this world or the next, and then repentance can happen later, even if you haven't done it at the same time.
Why? Because seeking Allah's forgiveness could be for big sins or minor sins or everyday sins that people do without realizing, and that is the correct opinion, inshallah.
Seeking forgiveness, "Oh Allah, cover my sin."
There is a beautiful Hadith: On the Day of Judgment, some of you will be called to Allah to come closer to Him until Allah places His veil over you.
So there is a veil which Allah created which covers you in order for others not to see or hear the conversation between you and Allah on the Day of Judgment.
Allah will say, "You did such and such a sin," and the person will say, "Yes, I did, my Lord."
Then Allah will say, "In the former life, I kept it a secret. I didn't expose that sin of yours, and today I will continue to cover it up."
So Allah is constantly seeking Allah's forgiveness.
If Allah were to expose all our sins, not one of us here would be remotely loved or liked or even spoken about in any good way.
But it is Allah who covers us.
So remember, when you are praised or complimented, don't let arrogance get to you or a superiority complex fool you.
Always say, "Oh Allah, forgive me. Do not hold me accountable for the unworthy praise they give me, and forgive me for the secret sins they don't know about me, and make me better than what they assume of me."
Number two, as a result of what you just learned, repentance and asking Allah to cover your sin—don't you go and do the wrong thing foolishly by exposing yourself.
Some people can't help it; they have to go foolishly parade their sins to their friends, their family, and everybody.
Worse than that are people who are proud of showing their sins to everyone on social media. It's rampant.
People love to expose their sins, and they're happy about it, and they will fight you if you dare to advise them.
Shaitan gets a hold of some of these hearts. Repent to Allah and fear Allah for your own sake.
Allah will not judge me for you, and He will not judge you over my sins. Each by themselves.
Why is it wrong to parade and expose your sins?
Number one, you'll give other people the idea by normalizing it. Because people—that's our nature.
We have a statement in Arabic: "Doing wrong things with people, so long as we're together, it's a festivity."
People love it when everyone does sins, and that's why when people say, "Well, everybody does it," that's a sign that the sin has been normalized to you.
Number two, you start to feel less guilty about it.
Some people use it as a form of mental health.
Not here; I spoke about mental health last week and the week before.
Not here, buddy. Mental health is about you have self-actualization. You have to know yourself.
Don't dig deep into your problems and your mistakes and your sins and try to fool yourself by saying, "I'm still good so long as I accept it."
There are people who go, "Don't wear clothes at all," and they say, "I'm happy that way."
There are people who kill, and they say, "Killing is good."
There are people who rape, and they say, "Well, they deserve it."
There are people who abuse and bash and steal, and they say, and they try to justify it in their heads.
Some people say, "Well, at least I'm not like this. At least others do that."
At least this is Shaitan telling you to normalize it.
So when you expose it and parade it, you normalize it.
The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said there will come a time when people will normalize sexual activity in public to the point where people will do that sexual activity on public roads, and people will be so normalized that they will say things like, "Well, at least you could have gone to the side of the street and continued your act."
So very normal.
Don't expose your sins except in two ways. Scholars said number one, if you're seeking advice from a scholar, an Imam, or a therapist, or it doesn't have to be a scholar; it can be someone you trust and respect that can advise you.
So sometimes you need to expose some of the sins in order to get advice on how to get out of it.
Number two, if your sin is going to harm—there's a high potential that it's going to harm someone else if you don't talk about it.
So sometimes in marriage, people, when they get married, normally you don't talk about your past sins if you've repented.
But if you know that something you've done in the past is likely to come back to harm the marriage or harm your spouse, then it is wise to hint about it.
Some people say, "No," but the answer is you've got to also be practical.
If it has a high likelihood that it will come back to harm the marriage, it's better to speak about it.
I'll give you an example: somebody, let's say, was addicted to drugs, and it's only been recent.
It's a better idea to say, "Look, I had a problem with drugs in the past, but alhamdulillah, Allah has saved me from it. I'm completely clean."
Why do you say that? For those who understand how drugs work, especially heavy drugs, in times of depression or times when you're low and down, it's possible people go back to it.
I've seen it in marriages a lot.
Sometimes people may carry certain diseases that can be transmitted to their partner or to children.
You can't just say, "I'm going to hide that sin."
So people are going to be harmed.
A person may have a crime that is still awaiting a decision, and you know you may end up in prison as a result of it.
It's important to tell the spouse you're going to marry.
So these are examples, and hopefully one day we'll do a lecture only about that.
Other than that, brothers and sisters, sin that has been done in the past and gone, and a person has repented from it, it is Haram, forbidden, to open it up and talk about it.
Those who tell you, "Tell us," you have a right to say no.
And once it's there, don't shame the person.
We already spoke about that.
So let's go to repentance.
Repentance can be from the following things:
Number one, from disbelief and Toba. A person used to be a disbeliever or a polytheist or did acts of Shirk, associating partners with Allah, and then they can repent from that so long as they're still alive.
Don't confuse the Ayah in the Quran which says Allah forgives all sins except for Shirk.
The Ayah, this verse saying Allah forgives all sins except for Shirk, is not about this life. It's talking about when you're already dead and you're in the Hereafter on the Day of Judgment.
That Allah may still forgive all your sins on the Day of Judgment if you want, except for Shirk.
That does not get forgiven if you die upon it, but while you're living, you can repent from it.
Number two, people can repent from major sins. It's not just can; it's a must.
Number three, you repent from abandoning obligations to start doing them again.
A person didn't pray the five daily prayers, which is an obligation. You repent to Allah from abandoning them and now starting them again.
A sister did not wear her hijab as Allah told her to. When I say hijab, I mean the veil, top to bottom, body and hair, the way that Allah told her to wear.
It's an obligation, and then she assumes the hijab in the right way, the proper dress code, and then she repents to Allah.
A person used to have drugs, repents to Allah, and stops.
Sorry, a person abandoned fasting, didn't fast, didn't pay the zakat.
So obligations that you did not do in the past, you repent from them.
Number four, from disobedience to obedience. Sometimes you may disobey Allah constantly in a particular one or two or three things, then you repent to obey Allah again.
Or number six, from minor sins. Minor sins we need to explain.
There are minor sins which are purposely done. You plan for it and you do it, but they're minor sins.
And there are minor sins which you purposely do, and then you keep repeating over and over—that's two.
Then there are minor sins which Allah calls in the Quran, "Those who avoid the major sins of what We had forbidden, except for the everyday unintentional sins."
You saw something, you went somewhere, something you couldn't avoid, you happened to fall, you forgot, you do a sin.
Allah forgives those by continuing to do good deeds.
You pray your Salah in the day; you don't have to repent from them specifically.
Number seven, some people repent from disliked things. They're not forbidden, but they're disliked.
For example, a disliked thing to do is to eat with your left hand.
Some people may be shocked with that. It's not forbidden to eat with your left hand, especially with people who are used to it.
It's disliked. A person may repent from sleeping on their stomach.
Sleeping on the stomach is disliked. Filling up your stomach too much—so they're not sinful, but they're disliked.
Repenting from them is a higher degree.
Some people repent from not doing recommended acts to start doing recommended acts.
They are not obligatory.
Let's say the 12 Sunnahs of your Salah—you didn't used to pray them or used to neglect them.
It's not a sin; it's a recommended act. If you do it, you get rewarded. If you don't do it, you don't get sinned.
But you repent and say, "I'm going to start doing my Sunnahs. I'm going to start doing recommended acts."
There is a high degree of repentance.
So remember, repentance means to return and to be better—not just from sins.
Another one is from preferred acts. When you have the option between good and better, this is called—sometimes the scholars may tell you, "Look, this is good, but this is better."
Sometimes there's a difference of opinion among the scholars about a particular matter, but the majority say, "But just to get out of the doubt, do that."
For example, something is Halal, and you say to yourself, "Look, but I'll just avoid it for the sake of doubt, and I'll just do this one right."
Then that is also repentance.
Some people want to be of that higher degree.
For example, this is very special: the highest repentant do this.
The Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wasallam) said, "Pray your Witr." Witr is one after, but he said, "The best Witr is the one before you sleep."
So praying the Witr close to after is good; praying it close to your sleeping time is better.
So you say, "Oh Allah, I repent to You from praying at then. I'm going to start praying at before I sleep."
Another one is night prayer. To pray night prayer is this or that.
To start praying night prayer means doing it in the last third instead of the beginning of the night.
So brothers and sisters, these are different ranks of people who repent.
Let's now talk about the four conditions.
Number one, you must stop the past sin. For example, a person has been looking at forbidden images for a long time or has not been praying their prayers consistently or has not been dressing correctly outside of their house.
All these are sins. The first thing you do is stop. You cannot repent without stopping.
You can't say, "Oh Allah, forgive me, but just give me about a week. I'll just have a little bit more."
Then you could have stopped. You can't say, "Oh Allah, I promise you on Monday next week."
That repentance hasn't started yet, so you've got to stop.
Number two is regret.
Now, some people say, "Well, what if I can't feel the regret?" In Islam, there are two things about Shari'ah.
Number one, you can look at the cause or the effect. If you feel the effect of regret, that’s beautiful.
Some people look at the cause. You say to yourself, "Man, I don't want to do this sin anymore because I don't want to be accountable on the Day of Judgment. I don't want to be punished. I want to enter Paradise. Allah is watching me."
You may not feel the regret, but because of that, you consciously stop.
That is another form of regret.
So you don't necessarily have to feel it because Allah says, "Allah does not burden a person more than what is within their capacity."
So don't go into a mental illness or something like that, thinking, "I don't feel regret; something's wrong with me."
No, if you stop it because of what Allah told you, it's regret.
Finally, determination. To determine means for the future.
You can't be half forward and half backward. You can't do it with hesitation.
You can't do it with negotiation. It has to be honest.
"I really am not going to do it again." This is it. This is it right there and then.
That's called determination. If you're not determined and don't mean it, it is not repentance.
All three conditions must be met for the repentance to be complete.
Now, a person may ask, "What if I get back to it the next day and I felt weak?"
I say to you, "That's fine."
Not fine, I say to you, "The repentance yesterday is still valid, but now you've broken it, and you're starting again. So do it again and again, so long as you got these three conditions perfect, honest."
Because we're weak, brothers and sisters.
The fourth condition is the rights of people. There are two rights of people: physical and immaterial.
The physical is like examples of theft, blackmail, ripping someone off, cheating them—all this involves their property, things that you can feel and touch.
The way to repent, after these three conditions, is to return the possessions of people that you took, to fix the losses that you gave them, to compensate them, or if you can't do that, you have to seek their pardon or make it up to them in some other way.
You might say, "That's too much." I say, "Yeah, exactly. It's not a simple matter, brothers and sisters."
And that's why the scholars used to say, "Why put yourself in that position?"
The second type is immaterial rights. For example, backbiting, accusing, defaming, verbal abuse, denigration—all these are immaterial rights that you took from a person.
What did the scholars say? You need to seek their pardon.
Ask them for forgiveness. If you fear that if you tell them, it is likely that they are not going to forgive you and cause a bigger problem, it's going to cause bigger problems, then the scholars said, "Then don't seek their forgiveness."
Don't do that because you want to change something to better, not to worse.
Instead, the majority of the scholars said you go back and you mention that—let's say it's backbiting.
You go back and you mention that person you backbit to the group that you backbit in a good way.
You start talking well about that person.
You might say, "Well, what if they're really bad?" Find something good about them.
And you make Dua for them: "Oh Allah, forgive them, grant them goodness, guide them."
You can give Sadaqah on their behalf. This is Imam's opinion.
Can I repent from one thing even if I have other sins still ongoing? Will Allah forgive my sin while I continue the other sins?
This is a good question.
Let's say I have 10 ongoing sins, and I repented from the first one. Do I have to also repent from the others in order for the first one to be forgiven?
There are two opinions about it. The majority and the correct one is that yes, that sin is forgiven, then you work on the next one, then you work on the next one.
An example: let's say that you've been watching Haram as a sin, and you have been neglecting your five daily prayers.
You repented from your neglecting your five daily prayers, and you start praying.
But the sin of looking at Haram is still ongoing.
The repentance from the five daily prayers is valid, and then you've got to work on the next one, and a sister didn't fast, but at the same time wasn't assuming her hijab properly.
She repents from not fasting, starts to fast, but the issue of the covering is still a problem for her.
Yes, her repentance from not fasting is valid so long as she follows these conditions, and she has to work on the next one, and so on and so forth.
Next question: What makes repentance most sincere in the highest degree?
So there are different levels. The highest degree is three things.
How do you know a repentance is of the highest degree?
Number one, the sin and everything attached to it has to be abandoned.
So not only the sin, but everything that leads to it, everything that is associated with it, everything that led you to it—completely gone.
Number two, firmly, without hesitation.
And number three, sincerely to Allah, without any hypocrisy.
Brothers and sisters, look at this.
Let me give you an example. Some people might say, "How can I repent with hypocrisy like this?"
You work for a company or an employee. They've got a policy: don't look at inappropriate material, don't abuse, don't do this.
And you've been doing it. After a long time, you get caught by HR. They said, "Come here; we're going to have to question your character. You probably lose your job."
And then suddenly you feel guilt and bad. You think, "My God, my world is ending. I'm going to lose my job."
So then you stop it, and you feel guilty. That is not for the sake of Allah; that's for the sake of your job.
That's not true repentance.
It's not Haram; you have to stop, and it's okay, and you probably save your job.
But religiously, it's not a true repentance because it's only based on keeping your job or not.
What is the sign? The sign is that person goes back when the employees are not looking. They go back to it.
That's the sign that it's not true repentance.
But you can change two birds with one stone.
You can say, "Man, look what's happened to me. Had I listened to Allah, I wouldn't be in this position now. I get it, alhamdulillah. It comes as a slap on my face. It's time for me to repent."
So you save your job, and you are truly sincere to Allah, and you wake up.
So then you repent, and a sign of that is whether you have your job or not, you've repented.
A person may be married, and they do something, and then finally their spouse catches them.
They fall into depression; their marriage is on the line.
So then what? They feel guilty, and they stop, but not for the sake of Allah, only to save their marriage or for the mental health of their spouse.
That's all good, but it's not a repentance to Allah.
They are still going to be questioned.
You can hit two birds with one sin and say, "SubhanAllah, see, as a result of the sin, Allah is punishing me and letting me see what's going on. It's time for me to turn back to Allah."
Then, inshallah, it's a good and sincere repentance, and so on.
Brothers and sisters, somebody doesn't pray but wants to marry this person who's looking for someone on Deen.
So they go on Deen to marry them. After six months, their Deen becomes gone.
So then they only did it for the marriage.
All these are not real repentance.
Finally, what are the signs of a true repentant?
How do you know that your repentance is most likely accepted by Allah?
What are its signs? There are three main ones.
Number one, you will feel that your Iman, your connection with Allah, your faith in Allah increases after.
You feel like your heart is closer to Allah. Your Iman, your faith, your spiritual belief rises.
Allah says this in number two.
You suddenly feel motivated to do more good deeds.
And number three, when you remember yourself and that sin, you hate that person.
You hate going back to that sin. You are disgusted with yourself.
These are prominent signs of a true repentant whose repentance has been accepted, inshallah, by Allah.
May Allah accept our repentance, forgive our sins, guide us, and not allow us to die except as true believers.
May Allah forgive whatever sins are left over after our death, pardon us, and hide our mistakes and our betrayals between us and Allah.
May Allah guide us and keep us protected.
May Allah forgive our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, our children, our spouses, and forgive all the believing men and women everywhere around the world.
You say Ameen, and an angel also says Ameen for you.