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Know that the first station of those who travel the path of the Truth is repentance, just as the first degree of those who seek to serve is purity, as God the Exalted said: 'O you who believe, turn to God in sincere repentance' (66/al-Tahrim), and He also said: 'And turn all together to God' (24/al-Nur). And the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, said: 'There is nothing more beloved to God than a young man who repents.' There is nothing dearer to God the Exalted than a youth who has repented. And he also said, peace be upon him: 'The one who repents from sin is like one who has no sin,' then he said: 'When God loves a servant, sin does not harm him,' then he recited: 'Indeed God loves those who repent' (2/al-Baqarah 222). 'The repentant from sin becomes sinless, and when God the Exalted loves a servant, his sin does no harm to him.' They asked: 'What is the sign of repentance?' He said: 'Regret.'

As for what he said, 'sin does not harm the friends [of God],' it means that the servant does not become an unbeliever through sin and no flaw enters his faith; and since sin does not harm the principal [of faith], the harm of a disobedience whose end is salvation is in reality no harm at all.

And know that repentance (tawbah) in the language means returning, as they say: 'taba, meaning he returned.' So turning back from what God the Exalted forbids to what is good from God's command is the reality of repentance. And the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: 'Regret is repentance.' Remorse is repentance. This is a phrase in which all the conditions of repentance are contained; for one condition of repentance is sorrow over the transgression, another is the immediate abandonment of the fault, and a third is resolving not to return to disobedience — and all three of these conditions are bound up in remorse; for once remorse is realized in the heart, these other two conditions follow it.

And remorse has three causes, just as repentance does: one, that fear of punishment overcomes the heart and grief over one's deeds takes form in the heart, so remorse is produced; another, that the desire for [divine] blessing prevails over the heart and it becomes known that through this evil act one will not attain it, so one regrets in hope of attaining it; and third, that shame before God the Witness arises and one repents of the transgression. So one of these three is the tā'ib (repentant), one is the munīb (turning), and one is the awwāb (returning).

And repentance has three stations: one is tawbah, another is anābat, and a third is awbat. Tawbah is out of fear of punishment; inābat is in seeking reward; awbat is in observance of the command — for tawbah is the station of the common believers and is from major sins, as God the Exalted said: 'O you who believe, turn to God in sincere repentance' (66/al-Tahrim). And inābat is the station of the saints and those brought near, as He said: 'Whoever fears the Merciful in the unseen and comes with a heart turning [to Him]' (50/Qaf 33). And awbat is the station of the prophets and the messengers, as He said: 'Excellent is the servant; indeed he was ever turning [to God]' (38/Sad 30).

So tawbah is returning from major sins to obedience, inābat is returning from minor sins to love, and awbat is returning from oneself to God the Exalted. The distinction is clear between one who returns from grave sins to the commands, and one who returns from lesser faults and idle thoughts to love, and one who returns from his own selfhood to the Truth.

And the root of repentance is from the restraints of God the Exalted, and the awakening of the heart from the sleep of heedlessness, and seeing the defect of one's state. When the servant reflects upon the wretchedness of his conditions and the ugliness of his acts and seeks deliverance from them, God the Exalted makes the means of repentance easy for him and delivers him from the wretchedness of his disobedience and brings him to the sweetness of obedience.

And it is permissible according to the People of the Sunna and the Community and all the masters of gnosis that someone repents of one sin while committing other sins, and God the Exalted, for that from which he has turned back, gives him reward, and it may be that through its blessings He brings him back from his other sins as well — just as a person may be a wine-drinker and a fornicator who repents of fornication while persisting in wine-drinking; his repentance from that one sin is valid despite his committing this other sin.

And the Bahshamiyya of the Mu'tazila say: 'The name of repentance is not valid except for one who abstains from all major sins.' But this statement is absurd; for the servant is not punished for whatever sins he does not commit, and when he abandons one kind [of sin], he is safe from its punishment, and inevitably he is repentant of it. Likewise, if someone performs some of the obligatory duties and neglects others, inevitably he has reward for what he performs, just as there is punishment for what he neglects. And if someone lacks the instrument of a disobedience and its means are not available, and he repents of it, he is repentant; for one pillar of repentance is remorse — so that he attains remorse over the past through this repentance, and in the present he turns away from that kind of disobedience and resolves that even if the instrument becomes available and the means are prepared, 'I will never return to this disobedience.'

And the masters differ concerning the description of repentance and its validity.

Sahl ibn Abdullah, with a group, may God have mercy on them, hold that: 'Repentance is that you do not forget your sin.' Repentance is that you never forget the sin you committed and remain constantly in shame over it, so that even if you have many [good] deeds you do not become conceited by them; for regret over evil deeds precedes righteous acts. And how could such a person become conceited when he does not forget the sin?

And on the other hand, Junayd and a group, may God have mercy on them, hold that: 'Repentance is that you forget your sin.' Repentance is that you forget the sin; for the repentant is a lover, and the lover is in [divine] contemplation, and in contemplation the recollection of offense is itself an offense — for a while he is with the offense, then for a while with the recollection of the offense, and the recollection of the offense is a veil from fidelity.

And the resolution of this difference is bound up in the difference between striving (mujāhadah) and contemplation (mushāhadah). This subject should be sought in the doctrine of the Sahlians: the one who holds the repentant to be subsisting through himself considers forgetting the sin to be heedlessness, and the one who holds him to subsist through the Truth sees the recollection of the sin as [associating partners]. In sum, if the repentant retains his attribute, the knot of his mysteries is not untied; and when he is annihilated in attribute, the recollection of the attribute is not valid for him. Moses, peace be upon him, said: 'I have repented to You' (7/al-A'raf 143) — in the state of the subsistence of the attribute; and the Messenger, peace be upon him, said: 'I cannot enumerate the praise due to You' — in the state of the annihilation of the attribute. In sum, the recollection of estrangement in the place of nearness is estrangement, and the repentant should not recall his own selfhood — so how should his sin come to mind? And in reality, the recollection of sin is itself a sin, for it is the locus of aversion; and just as sin is the locus of aversion, so too the recollection of it is the locus of aversion, and likewise the recollection of anything other. And just as the recollection of a crime is a crime, so its forgetting too is a crime, for the connection of both recollection and forgetting is bound to you.

Junayd, may God's mercy be upon him, said: I read many books, but they did not benefit me as much as this verse: 'When I said, What have I sinned? she replied in answer: Your very life is a sin to which no sin can be compared.' Since the existence of the lover in the presence of the Beloved is an offense, what worth has the description of it?

And in sum, repentance is a divine reinforcement (ta'yīd rabbānī), while acts of disobedience are bodily deeds. When remorse enters the heart, no instrument remains in the body that can repel the remorse of the heart. Since in the beginning his act did not repel repentance, so when it comes, in the end too his act cannot preserve repentance [against it]. And God, mighty and majestic, said: 'So He accepted his repentance; indeed He is the Accepting of repentance, the Merciful' (2/al-Baqarah 37). And for this there are many parallels in the text of the Book, to the extent that, from its being well known, there is no need to establish it.

So repentance is of three kinds: one from error to what is right, another from what is right to what is more right, and a third from one's own right to the Truth.

From error to what is right, as He said: 'And those who, when they commit an immorality or wrong themselves, remember God and seek forgiveness for their sins...' the verse (3/Al Imran 135).

And from what is right to what is more right, as Moses said, peace be upon him: 'I have repented to You' (7/al-A'raf 143).

And from oneself to the Truth, as the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: 'Indeed a covering comes over my heart, and indeed I seek God's forgiveness seventy times each day.'

Committing error is ugly and blameworthy, and returning from error to what is right is good and praiseworthy — and this is the general repentance, and its ruling is manifest. And as long as there is a more-right, to settle upon the right is a halt and a veil; and returning from the right to the more-right is in the degree of the people of high aspiration...