Chapter c · oncerning Repentance and its Corollaries.
Reynold Alleyne Nicholson translation
You must know that repentance (tawbat) is the first station of pilgrims on the way to the Truth, just as purification (ṭahárat) is the first step of those who desire to serve God. Hence God hath said: “O believers, repent unto God with a sincere repentance” (Kor. lxvi, 8). And the Apostle said, “There is nothing that God loves more than a youth who repents”; and he also said, “He who repents of sin is even as one who has no sin”; then he added, “When God loves a man, sin shall not hurt him,” i.e. he will not become an infidel on account of sin, and his faith will not be impaired. Etymologically tawbat means “return”, and tawbat really involves the turning back from what God has forbidden through fear of what He has commanded. The Apostle said: “Penitence is the act of returning” (al-nadam al-tawbat). This saying comprises three things which are involved in tawbat, namely, (1) remorse for disobedience, (2) immediate abandonment of sin, and (3) determination not to sin again. 295As repentance (tawbat) involves these three conditions, so contrition (nadámat) may be due to three causes: (1) fear of Divine chastisement and sorrow for evil actions, (2) desire of Divine favour and certainty that it cannot be gained by evil conduct and disobedience, (3) shame before God. In the first case the penitent is tá´ib, in the second case he is muníb, in the third case he is awwáb. Similarly, tawbat has three stations, viz., tawbat, through fear of Divine punishment; inábat, through desire of Divine reward; and awbat, for the sake of keeping the Divine command. Tawbat is the station of the mass of believers, and implies repentance from great sins (kabírat);[147] and inábat is the station of the saints and favourites of God (awliyá ú muqarrabán);[148] and awbat is the station of the prophets and apostles.[149] Tawbat is to return from great sins to obedience; inábat is to return from minor sins to love; and awbat is to return from one’s self to God. Repentance (tawbat) has its origin in the stern prohibitions of God and in the heart’s being aroused from the slumber of heedlessness. When a man considers his evil conduct and abominable deeds he seeks deliverance therefrom, and God makes it easy for him to repent and leads him back to the sweetness of obedience. According to the opinion of orthodox Moslems and all the Ṣúfí Shaykhs, a man who has repented of one sin may continue to commit other sins and nevertheless receive Divine recompense for having abstained from that one sin; and it may be that through the blessing of that recompense he will abstain from other sins. But the Bahshamí[150] sect of the Mu`tazilites hold that no one can properly be called repentant unless he avoids all great sins, a doctrine which is absurd, because a man is not punished for the sins that he does not commit, but if he renounces a certain kind of sin he has no fear of being punished for sins of that particular kind: consequently, he is repentant. Similarly, if he performs some 296religious duties and neglects others, he will be rewarded for those which he performed and will be punished for those which he neglected. Moreover, if anyone should have repented of a sin which he has not the means of committing at the moment, he is repentant, because through that past repentance he has gained contrition (nadámat), which is a fundamental part of repentance (tawbat), and at the moment he has turned his back on that kind of sin and is resolved not to commit it again, even though he should have the power and means of doing so at some future time. As regards the nature and property of repentance, the Ṣúfí Shaykhs hold diverse opinions. Sahl b. `Abdalláh (al-Tustarí) and others believe that repentance consists in not forgetting your sins, but always regretting them, so that, although you have many good works to your credit, you will not be pleased with yourself on that account; since remorse for an evil action is superior to good works, and one who never forgets his sins will never become conceited. Junayd and others take the opposite view, that repentance consists in forgetting the sin. They argue that the penitent is a lover of God, and the lover of God is in contemplation of God, and in contemplation it is wrong to remember sin, for remembrance of sin is a veil between God and those who contemplate Him. This controversy goes back to the difference of opinion concerning mortification (mujáhadat) and contemplation (musháhadat), which has been discussed in my account of the doctrine of the Sahlís. Those who hold the penitent to be self-dependent regard his forgetfulness of sin as heedlessness, while those who hold that he is dependent on God deem his remembrance of sin to be polytheism. Moses, while his attributes were subsistent, said, “I repent towards Thee” (Kor. vii, 140), but the Apostle, while his attributes were annihilated, said, “I cannot tell Thy praise.” Inasmuch as it behoves the penitent not to remember his own selfhood, how should he remember his sin? Indeed, remembrance of sin is a sin, for sin is an occasion of turning away from God, and so is the remembrance of it or the 297forgetting of it, since both remembrance and forgetfulness are connected with one’s self. Junayd says: “I have read many books, but I have never found anything so instructive as this verse:—
‘Idhá qultu má adhnabtu qálat mujíbatan
ḥayátuka dhanbun lá yuqásu bihi dhanbu.’
When I say: ‘What is my sin?’ she says in reply:
‘Thy existence is a sin with which no other sin can be compared.’“
In short, repentance is a Divine strengthening and sin is a corporeal act: when contrition (nadámat) enters the heart the body has no means of expelling it; and as in the beginning no human act can expel repentance, so in the end no human act can maintain it. God hath said: ”And He turned (tába) unto him (Adam), for He is the Disposer towards repentance (al—tawwáb), the Merciful” (Kor. ii, 35). The Koran contains many texts to the same effect, which are too well known to require citation.
Repentance is of three kinds: (1) from what is wrong to what is right, (2) from what is right to what is more right, (3) from selfhood to God. The first kind is the repentance of ordinary men; the second kind is the repentance of the elect; and the third kind of repentance belongs to the degree of Divine love (maḥabbat). As regards the elect, it is impossible that they should repent of sin. Do not you perceive that all the world feel regret for having lost the vision of God? Moses desired that vision and repented (Kor. vii, 140), because he asked for it with his own volition (ikhtiyár), for in love personal volition is a taint. The people thought he had renounced the vision of God, but what he really renounced was his personal volition. As regards those who love God, they repent not only of the imperfection of a station below the station to which they have attained, but also of being conscious of any “station” or “state” whatsoever.
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Repentance does not necessarily continue after the resolution not to return to sin has been duly made. A penitent who in those circumstances returns to sin has in principle earned the Divine reward for repentance. Many novices of this sect (the Ṣúfís) have repented and gone back to wickedness and then once more, in consequence of an admonition, have returned to God. A certain Shaykh relates that he repented seventy times and went back to sin on every occasion, until at the seventy-first time he became steadfast. And Abú `Amr b. Nujayd[151] tells the following story: “As a novice, I repented in the assembly-room of Abú `Uthmán Ḥírí and persevered in my repentance for some while. Then I fell into sin and left the society of that spiritual director, and whenever I saw him from afar my remorse caused me to flee from his sight. One day I met him unexpectedly. He said to me: ‘O son, do not associate with your enemies unless you are sinless (ma`ṣúm), for an enemy will see your faults and rejoice. If you must sin, come to us, that we may bear your affliction.’ On hearing his words, I felt surfeited with sin and my repentance was established.” A certain man, having repented of sin, returned to it and then repented once more. “How will it be,” he said, “if I now turn to God?” A heavenly voice answered, saying: “Thou didst obey Me and I recompensed thee, then thou didst abandon Me and I showed indulgence towards thee; and if thou wilt return to Me, I will receive thee.”
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Dhu ´l-Nún the Egyptian says: “Ordinary men repent of their sins, but the elect repent of their heedlessness,” because ordinary men shall be questioned concerning their outward behaviour, but the elect shall be questioned concerning the real nature of their conduct. Heedlessness, which to ordinary men is a pleasure, is a veil to the elect. Abú Ḥafṣ Ḥaddád says: 299“Man has no part in repentance, because repentance is from God to Man, not from Man to God.” According to this saying, repentance is not acquired by Man, but is one of God’s gifts, a doctrine which is closely akin to that of Junayd. Abu ´l-Ḥasan Búshanjí says: “When you feel no delight in remembering a sin, that is repentance,” because the recollection of a sin is accompanied either by regret or by desire: one who regrets that he has committed a sin is repentant, whereas one who desires to commit a sin is a sinner. The actual sin is not so evil as the desire of it, for the act is momentary, but the desire is perpetual. Dhu ´l-Nún the Egyptian says: “There are two kinds of repentance, the repentance of return (tawbat al-inábat) and the repentance of shame (tawbat al-istiḥyá): the former is repentance through fear of Divine punishment, the latter is repentance through shame of Divine clemency.” The repentance of fear is caused by revelation of God’s majesty, while the repentance of shame is caused by vision of God’s beauty. Those who feel shame are intoxicated, and those who feel fear are sober.
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