How Do I Make a Complete Repentance from Money That I Stole from Work?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

How do I make a complete repentance from money that I stole from work?

Answer

In order for your repentance to be valid and accepted with Allah Most High it must fulfill the following four conditions:

(1) You must have remorse for the sin

(2) You must desist from the sin

(3) You must have a firm resolve never to repeat the sin.

since this sin relates to the rights of others an additional condition must be met.

(4) You must return to the people what is rightfully theirs.

[Nawawi, Riyadh al-Salihin]

If you’re able to return the money or the value thereof, to the person or company from whom you stole, it is obligatory for you to do so. It is, however, not necessary that they know that you stole the money and are now returning it. [Haskafi, al-Durr al-Mukhtar – Bab al-Ghasb]

Thus you can return the money by donating it to them, gifting it, or any other means of transferring the money back to their ownership. 

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 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.