Can I Turn to Allah Even if I Can’t Stop Sinning?
Answered by Ustadh Tabraze Azam
Question: Can I turn sincerely to God if I’m stuck in sin and really find it hard to come out of it? Is there any point in me turning to God and saying ‘I’m sorry’ even if I can’t find it in me to leave the sin?
Answer: Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
I pray that you are in the best of health and faith, insha’Allah.
Yes, however, keep repenting and keep returning back to Allah. Ask Allah to remove the sin from your life, and then take the active means to get the sin out. This is true sincerity. Otherwise, you are just kidding yourself.
Allah Most High says: “Say: My servants who have wronged yourselves, never despair of God’s mercy. God forgives all sins: He is truly the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful.” [39.53]
And He Most High says, “Celebrate the praise of your Lord and ask His forgiveness: He is always ready to accept repentance.” [110.3]
Abu Hurayra said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say, ‘By Allah, I ask Allah’s forgiveness and turn towards Him in repentance more than seventy times a day.”
Abu Hamza Anas ibn Malik al-Ansari, the servant of the Messenger of Allah reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “Allah is happier about the repentance of one His slaves than one of you would be about finding your camel which had strayed away from you in the middle of the desert.”[Agreed upon]
In the variant of Muslim, “Allah has greater joy at the repentance of one His slaves when he turns towards Him than one of you would have over his mount, which, having escaped from him with his food and drink in the middle of the desert so that he has despaired of finding it and gone to a tree to lie down in its shade, suddenly appears standing by him while he is in that state, so that he takes its reins and then says out of the intensity of his joy, ‘O Allah, You are my slave and I am Your Lord!’ getting confused because of his intense joy.'”
Please also see: A Reader on Tawba (Repentance) and: Leaving sin, outward & inward – Shaykh Faraz Rabbani at SeekersGuidance (www.SeekersGuidance.org)
And Allah alone gives success.
wassalam,
Tabraze Azam
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
