By Babatunde Jose
Realizing that the Day of Judgment is near, the political elite that stole the people’s patrimony and impoverished them ‘wept and began to tear their clothes’: And Jesus asked them, “What sin have your clothes committed? Turn instead to your hearts and reprove them.” Joel 2:13
In Islam, the primary mechanism for atonement, for setting aright one’s relationship with God, lies in tawba. While the Arabic word is usually rendered “repentance”, the translation, while viable, is slightly misleading for two reasons.
First of all, repentance derives from a combination of the intensifying prefix re and the Latin paenitere, which means to experience sorrow, regret, dissatisfaction, or even torture. From it we get such words as “penitent” and “penitentiary”. Karl Burger highlights this sense of repentance when he observes that it is “the feeling of pain experienced by man when he becomes conscious that he has done wrongly or improperly in thought, word, or deed … It is a natural and involuntary feeling of pain.”
Tawba on the other hand stems from the trilateral Arabic root t-w-b, which means to “turn” or “return”. It should not surprise us therefore that in the Quran, one of the most frequently coupled concepts with tawba is islah, literally “setting things aright”, “making amends”, or “rectifying wrongs” (see Q 2:160, 4:146, 3:89, 24:5, 4:16, 5:39, 6:54). The emphasis in the Quranic conceptualization of tawba is therefore on making a change, undoing past mistakes, and taking concrete steps to ameliorate the consequences of one’s own crimes or misdemeanors.
The second and more important reason we cannot easily translate the Arabic word “repentance” is because in the Quran, God frequently engages in tawba, that is to say, He turns and returns to the human being. But no Muslim would state God repents because that would imply, He erred or made a mistake, and then felt remorse for what He did. The doctrine of divine perfection in Islam precludes such a possibility.
In fact, not only does God engage in tawba, but He is also described in the Quran as tawwab, the “Oft-Returner” or “Frequently Returning One” (Q 2:37, 2:54, 2:128, 2:160, 4:16, 4:64, 9:104, 10:3, 9:118, 24:10, 49:12).
The interpretive authorities of Islam strain to point out that God does not just accept every tawba. There are conditions for the atonement of sins the human being must strive to fulfill, to the best of his ability. After all, the Quran declares, “As for those who return (in tawba), set matters aright (through islah), and make manifest the truth, it is to them I return (in tawba)” (Q 2:160), that is to say, “it is them I forgive”, or “it is them whose atonement I accept”.
In his Treatise, the early authority Qushayri (d. 1072) outlines the requirements of tawba. ‘There are three conditions of tawba for it to be sound: remorse (nadam) for the violations that have been committed, an immediate abandonment of the slip (zalla), and a firm resolve (‘azm) not to return to similar acts of disobedience’.
The first of these conditions is based on a famous tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW). When he was asked about the mark or sign of tawba, he replied, “remorse”. In one sense, we might say this is proper repentance. As already noted, contrition and regret are not absent in the process of tawba, but tawba is broader in scope than repentance.
Most importantly, it signifies the sincerity behind one’s acknowledgement of having done wrong, of having violated divine law.
We find contrition in the Quran’s account of Adam and Eve, in the aftermath of the sin that forced them into exile from Paradise. Remorse formed part of their acknowledgement of having transgressed a divine prohibition, since they confessed, “Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves” (Q 7:23). While the Quran does not explicitly identify their sentiment as nadam (or nadama), it is nevertheless implied in their response, in their pleas and petitions for forgiveness.
The role of nadam in turning to God from a misdeed cannot, therefore, be minimized. It was the adab (politeness and respect) of Adam and Eve, their reticence to impute blame onto anyone other than themselves, even though it was Iblis who tempted them, and God who created that temptation, that was the ultimate reason for their forgiveness and exaltation.
One of the effects such an attitude has on the human soul, particularly when viewed through the eyes of the more inward-turning thinkers of Islam, is that it helps create a tendency not to fault-find others, to assume responsibility out of courtesy before God for one’s seeming mistakes, while striving to become a more conscientious person.
The contemplatives of Islam note that as human beings, especially when we are spiritually underdeveloped, we have a proclivity to see the moral blemishes of others with great clarity while remaining blind to our own. We tend to lay the blame at the feet of everyone and everything but ourselves.
The second condition of tawba, of seeking atonement, is rather self-evident, namely, to immediately abandon the sin. “To seek forgiveness without refraining from the wrong is the tawba of liars” – Qushayri.
As for the third condition, a firm resolution not to return to the offence in the future. While Muslim authorities generally agree on its necessity, there is some difference of opinion on how faithful one has to be to the resolution for tawba to be accepted by God.
Some argue that one has to remain faithful to the vow for the rest of one’s life, or at least a good part of it. Others, more cognizant of the frailties of human nature, stipulated that it was enough to genuinely resolve, no matter how often or soon one slipped afterwards.
An essential component of tawba in the Quran lies in islah, in amending mistakes, redressing wrongs, and setting matters aright. This is particularly the case for atonement involving interpersonal offences.
Islam classifies human responsibilities into two categories: those involving God and those involving others.
Wrongdoing against human beings, a violation of the rights they have over us, almost always requires some form of restitution, to the best of one’s ability. Thus, for theft, one has to return the stolen goods; for the desecration of another’s property, one must restore it to its original state; for having slandered someone’s good name, one is obliged to repair and rebuild the slandered party’s honor.
This is, no doubt, a rudimentary moral principle, and certainly not unique to the religion in so far as we are concerned with outlining the ethics of interpersonal relations. The responsibilities involved here are so critical to the reparative process of tawba and atonement, Muslims believe God will meticulously hold one accountable after death for misdeeds against others that were not atoned for, in some measure, in this world.
In the final order, God will have the last say, since the rights one owes others are ultimately subsumed under the rights of God.
The importance Islam attaches to the wise, arbitrating role God will play in the next world in “settling scores” cannot be overstated.
In the next life, divine judgement, factoring in every element of the equation, including our own self-deceptions, will be decisive. This is why the moral authorities of Islam emphasize that in order to sufficiently prepare for death—and the faith is thoroughly centered on the idea that life is a preparation for dying—one should strive to ensure that no one will have a claim against him when he leaves this world.
And the way to do this is to scrupulously take an account of one’s own actions while still here, not only to identify the harms one may have inflicted on others, but to take adequate measures to atone for them, even if it might involve nothing more than a heartfelt apology for cruel words, or charity on behalf of another.
As for sins that involve only God, they are easier to atone for, for the simple reason that God is infinitely more merciful and forgiving than any of His creatures. Nevertheless, there are acts of expiation (kaffara) identified both in the Quran and the hadith for specific breaches of religious law, such as intentionally eating in the month of fasting (Ramadan) without a valid excuse, breaking an oath, or an improper divorce.
Yet, as important as these propitiatory acts are, God is not, technically speaking, bound to punish the sinner if he fails to carry them out, at least not in the dominant strands of Islamic theology.
It is clear therefore that there must be an islah, an amending of wrongs alongside tawba, and the particular manner in which it is to be carried out requires some discernment, contingent on the nature of the offence.
In Islam, the capacity to turn to God in tawba is viewed as a divine gift. It is a mechanism for healing and purification, a protection for the soul from the consequences of its own misdeeds. And it is a gift available so long as one is alive. Indeed, as the hadith runs, “God accepts the tawba of the human being until the throes of death”.
Yet, since one does not know when one will breathe one’s last, they advise one not to delay tawba, since the Angel of Death may come all of a sudden. Thus, the Muslim contemplatives encourage one to renew tawba with regularity, as a concerted and disciplined spiritual exercise, so that one is always ready for the divine encounter.
Finally, a recurring motif in Muslim meditations on returning, repentance, and atonement, is to never lose hope in God’s mercy, no matter how serious one’s crimes. To despair of divine Mercy is, in a sense, to lose faith in God Himself, since Mercy is His prevailing attribute, as the revelation of Islam reiterates repeatedly.
For those who have sinned against us, committing lootery against the people, the door of repentance is not closed: Deliver all you have looted and beg for forgiveness of the people. “For verily God forgives all sins.” (Q 39:53).
Barka Juma’at and happy weekend.
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