Home
Discover Islam
Quran Recitations
Lectures
Fatwa
Articles
Fiqh
E-Books
Women
Boys & Girls 
Enter Question
View By Subject
Fatwa Of The Week
Selected Fatwa
Fatwa CenterDifficulty of fulfilling the fourth condition of repentance
Question
what if the 4th condition of repentance can't be fulfilled? the one about returning the rights.. such as saying something bad about the prophet (peace be upon him) or.. teaching people falsehood.. (is that one which you must tell people the truth after? and what if you can't tell anyone) i am in a state of despair.. like committing sins that you can't control sometimes.. some of them concerning other people's rights that you can't return.. if it's my fault someone leaves Islam or believes in another faith.. can they take the fact you died as a Muslim for themselves ( on judgement day? ) what if your intention was bad.. because of your past but sometimes you return to normal and you hate that evil part of yourself.. please answer my question fully.. sometimes i don't understand when you link me other fatwas..
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
There is no doubt that among the conditions of repentance is that one has to seek forgiveness and clear oneself from liability for the rights of others. Abu Hurayrah 
narrated that the Prophet said: “If someone has wronged a person, he has to seek his forgiveness from that injustice before the Day (of Judgment) on which there would be no Dinaar and no Dirham. On that Day, if he (the unjust person) has good deeds, then they will be taken from him and if he has no good deeds, then the bad deeds of the person he wronged will be taken off him and transmitted to the wrongdoer.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]
There are some details regarding how a person should seek forgiveness for these rights, as the rights are not all equal. These details are as follows:
1- If these rights are material, like if someone had stolen money from another person, then he must return it to him.
2- If these rights are moral such as backbiting, slander, and so on, then if the people whom he wronged know about it, then one must seek their forgiveness, otherwise, it would be sufficient to supplicate for them and speak good about them. If the matter did not reach those whom he wronged, the scholars differed in opinion about this. The preferred opinion is the view chosen by Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Al-Qayyim and others 
that it is enough for the person to supplicate for them as it is most likely that if he informs them there will be a greater harm and this is contrary to the objectives of the Sharee’ah that the Muslims should love each other and have mutual understanding.
If someone misleads someone else or corrupts his beliefs, then he must mend what he had corrupted and show the truth to those whom he misled, but it is not necessary that he does this directly; rather, he may do so indirectly like making them hear the facts through a tape recorder, for example, or seeking the help of someone who may clarify the truth to them. Allaah says (what means): {Except for those who repent and correct themselves and make evident [what they concealed]. Those - I will accept their repentance, and I am the Accepting of repentance, the Merciful.}[Quran 2:160]
We hope that the matter is easy and there is no undue hardship in doing so. For more benefit, please refer to Fatwa 198821.
Allaah Knows best.
Search Fatwa
Fatwa Subject
