Matters that Help in Repenting

Following are some matters that help in repenting to Allah; may Allah remind a forgetful or alert a negligent by them.

  • Categories: Repentance -

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

 
All the praises and thanks be to Allah and peace and blessings of Allah be upon His Messenger.
 
Following are some matters that help in repenting to Allah; may Allah remind a forgetful or alert a negligent by them.
 
 
These matters include:
 
1- Sincerity to Allah Almighty and approaching Him:
 
Sincerity to Allah is the most useful remedy. If a person is sincere to Allah and is faithful in asking for repentance, Allah helps and supports him. He will keep the evils that stand in his way and prevent him from repentance away from him.
 
2- Short hope and remembering the Hereafter:
 
If a person remembers that life is short and vanishes quickly, recognizes that it is a farm to the Hereafter and a chance to gain righteous deeds and remembers the enduring pleasure and the painful torture and punishment in the Hellfire, he will desist from slackening the reins of desires and will compensate for what he has missed with good deeds.
 
3- Being occupied with what is useful and avoiding loneliness and leisure:
 
Leisure leads to accompanying bad people and causes moral deterioration and loss. If a person is engaged in what is useful in both this worldly life and the Hereafter, his leisure will be less and there will be no chance for corrupting or being corrupted.
4- Keeping away from evil stimulants and things that remind of disobedience:
 
One is to be away from reasons of disobedience, evil desires and things that raises one's desires, and drives one's instinct such as watching films, listening to profligate and brazen songs and reading immoral magazines. One is also to keep away from things that remind of disobedience such as places of indecencies. If the reasons of a matter end, it vanishes and disappears. Being near from agitators is calamity and misery. Out of sight is out of mind
 
5- Accompanying good people and avoiding bad people:
 
Accompanying good people enlivens the heart; it motivates following the righteous and prevents a person from corruption. Accompanying bad people, on the contrary, beautifies the ugly, uglifies the beautiful and leads a person to follow bad people. One is known by his company and a leopard cannot change its spots.
 
6- Bringing into minds the harms of sins and acts of disobedience:
 
Such harms include: the deprivation of knowledge and livelihood, the loneliness felt in the heart of the disobedient, matters become difficult, the darkness of the heart, the weakness of the body, the deprivation of obedience, and the shortening of life and eradicating its blessing.
 
They include also: acts of disobedience breed themselves; they strengthen the intention of disobedience in the heart and gradually weaken the intention for repenting until it totally disappears from the heart; so that one enjoys disobedience and detaches himself from uglifying it.
 
7- Praying, Invoking Allah:
 
This is the greatest remedy and the most useful medicine. It is an enemy to affliction, that it resists, treats, prevents, and removes or, at least, alleviates it when taking place.
 
 
Ibn Khuzaymah House