Can I Repent for Sins That I Am Not Sure I Have Committed?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Can I repent for sins that I am not sure I have committed?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Yes, you can repent from sins even if you are unsure that you had committed them.

Repentance – Remorse for Falling Short

The essence of repentance is remorse and the underlying factor that all sin go back to is a deficiency in fulfilling the rights of Allah Most High.

For this reason, one can constantly be in a state of repentance if they are sincerely remorseful for not worshipping Allah Most High as He deserves.

Repentance Without Sin

Furthermore, if we understand these two factors (i.e. remorse and a sense of falling short regarding the rights of Allah Most High) a person could be in a state of repentance even if they did not sin, whatsoever. This is because in reality, none of creation can truly fulfill the rights of what Allah Most High deserves of reverence and worship. [Ghazali, The Forty Principles of the Religion]  

[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 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 several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.