---
status: designed
start: ''
objective: have good traits
dependency: ''
sidebar_label: Repentance
outcome: ''
type: domain
data: null
---

## Benefits of Repentance

* Repentance cleanses the heart of sin, allowing Allah's light to fill it, like soap that removes dirt from clothes.
* Allah loves those who repent and are more pleased with the repentance of His servant than a person who finds a lost item that was essential to their journey.
* Repentance helps you avoid being among the persistent sinners, and it increases provision in this world.

## Repentance is a Duty for Everyone

Every person has a nature with various traits: animalistic, predatory, devilish, and lordly. Each trait can lead to specific faults:

  * Animalistic traits lead to desires, evil, and indulgence.
  * Predatory traits produce anger, envy, and hostility.
  * Devilish traits involve deceit and manipulation.
  * Lordly traits bring pride, vanity, and a love of power.

## Repentance is Necessary in Every State

Repentance varies according to the individual's level:

  * For most, it addresses outward sins.
  * For the righteous, it involves correcting inner faults.
  * For the devout, it is for moments of doubt.
  * For those who love Allah, it addresses times of neglect.
  * For gnostics, it is about needing to progress at the speed they should have. And as closeness to Allah has no end, this level has no end.

**Common times for repentance include:**
  * During [daily supplications](Processes/Say%20morning,%20evening%20and%20before%20sleeping%20supplications.md).
  * During [times of affliction](Processes/Attitude%20in%20affliction.md), as hardship may result from sin.
  * During the last part of the night.
  * In the last ten days of Ramadan, blessings and acceptance are increased. Make sure to use the special dua: "اَللّٰهُمَّ إِنَّكَ عَفُوٌّ تُحِبُّ الْعَفْوَ فَاعْفُ عَنِّيْ" (You can set an automatic notification for this)

## Conditions for True Repentance

Real repentance has three key aspects: knowledge, regret, and determination.

  * [**Knowledge**](Processes/Stop%20yourself%20during%20sin.md): Understanding that sin harms the soul and distances one from Allah. Disobedience should be recognized as evil and should be left immediately.
  * [**Regret**](Processes/Regret%20and%20prevent.md): Feeling sorrow for past sins often manifesting as grief and tears. Contemplating Hellfire's severity deepens this regret, as it is a consequence of disobedience. Also, perform good deeds to expiate them.
  * [**Determination**](Processes/Regret%20and%20prevent.md): Firmly resolve not to repeat the sin and avoid anything that could lead to it by creating a prevention plan.

## Overcoming the Habit of Sin

Repentance requires giving up persistent sin. Five common barriers to this include:

  * **Delayed Punishment**: Since punishment is not immediate, people ignore it. Reflecting on the nearness of death and the hereafter can combat this.
  * **Attachment to Pleasures**: Desires can overpower resolve. Consider how readily one would quit a pleasure if a doctor warned it could lead to death.
  * **Procrastination**: Delaying repentance. Reflect on how eternity's rewards and punishments depend on actions.
  * **False Hope of Pardon**: Some assume they will be forgiven without change, and that their other good deeds will save them. This is a deception from Satan disguised as faith.
  * **Doubt in the Afterlife**: This weakens one's commitment to repentance.

## The Nature of Minor Sins

[Minor sins](Processes/Conceal%20your%20sins.md) can accumulate for various reasons, requiring constant awareness and repentance driven by fear, which stems from wisdom and insight.

  * Belittling minor sins can cause disregard.
  * Feeling joy or pride in minor sins, thinking they are a blessing.
  * Thinking Allah's concealment is due to personal virtue.
  * Sinning openly or discussing it with others.
  * When minor sins are committed by a scholar, whom others view as a model.

## The Source of Temptation

For protection and prevention, here are the sources that you need to be aware of:

  * **Internal**: The ego and lower self, often leading to habitual sins.
  * **External**: The temptations of the world.
  * **Satan**: Which leads to opportunistic sins. He attacks in stages, starting with:
	* Shirk (associating partners with Allah)
	* Bid'ah (religious innovation)
	* Major sins
	* Minor sins
	* Overindulgence in permissible activities (leading to wasted time)
	* Lowering one's efforts in good deeds