How Do I Repent for Hurting Someone?

 Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Is it permissible to just seek forgiveness if you have hurt someone, or do you need to seek their forgiveness? If that’s so, then there’s an ayah in Quran which shows there’s repentance even for murder, so can you clarify this matter for me

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Repentance is obligatory for any major sin that is personal between one and Allah Most High, or that affects the rights of others. [Ghazali, Ihya ‘Ulum al-Din]

The Conditions of Repentance

The core condition for accepted sound repentance is remorse for the deed. This remorse, if sincere, will translate into leaving the sin and resolving never to do it again. Lastly, one will seek to rectify the loss incurred by the sin. [Ibid.]

Sins Against Others

Regarding sins against others, it is a condition of repentance that one right the wrong with that person. This can either be by seeking their forgiveness, returning what was taken, or fulfilling the Sacred laws resulting from that sin.

The last item mentioned relates to certain sins that the Sacred law dictates the mode of rectification of that wrong. Examples of this are the following sins and their prerequisite rulings for repentance:

Murder-blood money
Physical harm that leads to loss of limb-blood money
Accusations of Fornication-80 lashes

The Final Say

Despite the conditions of repentance, every Believer who sins is under Divine discretion. If Allah Most High wants, He may forgive; and if He wants, He may punish. So, it is possible for someone who did not fulfill this final condition to be forgiven. However, it is the exception not the rule.

Hope this helps
Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.