Repentance is the door that opens to every sincere person on the path to the Pleasure of Allah, the Acceptor of repentance. The road that leads to Him, for we will all return to Him, willingly or unwillingly. He who repents must be aware and grateful for this opportunity that has been offered to him.
Indeed, he who repents has freed himself. Doors have opened to him for which Allah alone holds the keys.
How to free oneself from ignorance?
True belief does not remain buried in the darkness of a heart weakened by an ignorant mind and a soul occupied by the pleasures of this world. To repent is to admit, to acknowledge one's wrongs. It is to acknowledge, admit and want to spend one's life bearing witness to the Oneness of our Creator.
To believe in Him is to know that He is there, that He observes us and that we will never be without Him. To repent is to be no longer able to do otherwise than to acknowledge believing in God, Allah the Almighty. It is also to acknowledge not knowing enough. So it is time to multiply the means to learn more about one's Creator, to learn to know Him as He is Worthy of being known.
To repent is therefore to free oneself from ignorance, to come out of darkness and enter into the Light. The more the servant seeks to know Allah, to Him the Majesty and the Glory, the more he loves Him. The more he loves Him, the more he will seek to work to draw closer to Him.
(...) My slave does not cease to draw closer to Me through supererogatory acts until I love him. And when I love him I will be his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. If he asks Me I will grant him, and if he seeks My protection I will protect him. Reported by Tirmidhi
How to free oneself from disobedience?
To return to Him, with a repentant heart, regretting, hating to go back to blindness, is to be ready to efface oneself, to no longer listen within oneself to the echo of one's own desires, one's inclinations and one's vices, in order to seek what Allah, Glorified be He, wants for us, expects of us:
Surah 51 Verse 56
I have not created the Jinn and Mankind except to worship Me.
Through obedience to Allah and to His Prescriptions, the servant proves his love for Him. The repentant servant accepts this proof of Love on His part that He gives to whom He wills, by opening to them the keys of repentance. The first of the acts of worship of which he must acquit himself after the testimony of the Oneness of Allah and the attestation that His Prophet and Messenger is Muhammad, is the prayer.
In Surah 20 Verse 132, Allah the Almighty says :
And command your family to perform the Salat and be steadfast in it (...).
How to free oneself from ingratitude?
Allah is the Provider of graces to mankind but most of them are not grateful. Surah 40 Verse 61
To repent is to let His Love overwhelm us and grow within us. To let one's heart embrace feelings that ignorance had buried within us. To feel the strength of this difference being born in us.
The Love of Allah uproots and destroys the baser feelings that had settled in that empty place that was our heart. To repent is to free oneself, through daily work on oneself, from pride, rancour, hatred, envy and indifference, or worse still.
One cannot love someone who does not matter to us, whom we barely know. So what of one's Creator? And to Allah belong the most beautiful examples. Learning His Names and Attributes in order to pray to Him, invoke Him, and thank Him by them is a duty. It is to acknowledge that we ask so much while we do not take enough of our time for Him, to know Him and obey Him.
To repent is therefore to acknowledge having been ungrateful all this time and to want to advance towards Him. With each step, you will see, you who repent, the effects of His Love upon you more quickly than you think:
When God loves someone, the angel Gabriel makes this call: God, exalted be He, loves so-and-so, so love him. Thus he becomes loved by the inhabitants of the heavens and he is made pleasing to the inhabitants of the Earth. Reported by Bukhari and Muslim
How to free oneself from distractions?
The blind and the seeing are not equal, and those who believe and perform good deeds cannot be compared to the one who does evil. Rarely do you remember. Surah 40 Verse 58
The devil beautifies the actions of those who stray. When the servant makes the choice of repentance, let him prepare to struggle against what it inspires in his soul. He must revisit his way of conceiving life and keep away from futile gatherings, temptations, and controversies. The world is not only drowsiness, distractions and profits.
Allah, to Him the glory, said in Surah 7 Verse 51 :
Those who took their religion as distraction and play, and whom the life of this world deluded. Today We will forget them as they forgot the meeting of this their day, and because they denied Our signs.
The servant who aspires to nearness with his Lord cannot allow himself to abandon the pursuit of the Truth along the way, nor to lose himself in futilities or ceaseless worldly preoccupations.
The middle course is the straight path to seek in all things. And success belongs entirely to Allah.
In general, one will remember that to repent the faithful must respect 5 criteria of repentance, which are:
- sincerity towards Allah ALONE. So do not associate anyone or any interest or any fear of anything or anyone OTHER than Allah.
- To regret one's acts for which one repents
- To hate returning to the blameworthy act that one used to do and to be determined never to do it again
- To stop this act immediately and to restore their rights to those who have been wronged (humans)
- To repent before one's death comes, otherwise the repentance is not accepted (or the rising of the sun in the west).
Allah indeed said:
"But the pardon is not for those who do evil deeds until the moment when death presents itself to one of them, and who then cries out: 'Indeed, I repent now.'" (Surah An-Nisa verse 18)
Allah is the Most Knowing. May Allah guide us.