tawbah: turning back when things go wrong
you made a mistake. you knew it was wrong, but you didn’t control your nafs. something inside you whispered it was wrong but you ignored that little voice. you’ve committed a sin. what now?
قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَ الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَّحْمَةِ اللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ
say, "o My servants who have transgressed against themselves [by sinning], do not despair of the mercy of Allah. indeed, Allah forgives all sins. indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful." {sura zumar: aya 53}
our Lord ﷻ is most Forgiving, so fret not! all one has to do in order to seek Allah’s ﷻ mercy and forgiveness is tawbah.
tawbah literally means to return back, because by repenting we are essentially turning back to Allah ﷻ after turning away from Him ﷻ whilst choosing to sin.
how does one perform tawbah?
it has been reported that abu bakr رضي الله تعالى عنه narrated that the Prophet ﷺ: “there is no one who commits a sin, then purifies himself and stands in salah and offers two raka’at and seeks forgiveness, except that Allah ﷻ will forgive him.”
tawbah consists of the salah and dua. 2 rak’ah nafl with the intention of tawbah followed by a sincere dua asking Allah ﷻ to forgive you and keep you in His ﷻ mercy is all you really need
there are three main requirements:
stopping the sin- you can’t ask for forgiveness for something that you are still involved in. cut the sin off from its core so you make be more firm in your repentance
sincere repentance-that guilty feeling you feel that won’t let you go? that’s a blessing. feeling remorse means Allah ﷻ wants to forgive you, all you have to do is reach out
a firm intention to never, ever commit that sin again- even if you’ve promised yourself this a hundred times, DO IT AGAIN! believe in yourself and ask Allah for His help in keeping your promise. deep down, we should believe that we won’t ever do anything to displease Allah ﷻ ever again
also, if the sin you want to repent from involved someone else’s rights, you must seek their forgiveness first. for example, if you stole from someone, you need to return the item before you can ask Allah ﷻ for forgiveness, otherwise you’re still oppressing your brother, and how can Allah ﷻ forgive the one that oppressed His ﷻ servants? however, if the sin was such that revealing it to the person now would cause them harm, conceal the sin and make abundant dua for your brother. for example, if two brothers backbite a third in complete privacy, it may be best not to reveal this to the third brother, especially if it will hurt him. rather, we can make sincere dua that Allah ﷻ places forgiveness in his heart for us and that Allah ﷻ also forgives our brother just as we want him to forgive us.
this is the most complete manner of tawbah that i know of. this is required when committing a major sin, like leaving salah on purpose or listening to music.
i pray this suffices the interested party.
والله ﷻ اعلم وأتمم وأجل وأكبر
