Allah Most High says: “O you who believe, repent to Allah with sincere repentance. It may be that your Lord will absolve you of your misdeeds and admit you into Gardens beneath which rivers flow.” 1

Muslim narrated in his Sahīh from al-Agharr ibn Yasār al-Muzanī—may Allah be pleased with him—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “O people, repent to Allah and seek His forgiveness, for I repent a hundred times each day.”2

Al-Nawawī—may Allah have mercy on him—said in his great work Riyād al-Sālihīn (Gardens of the Righteous): “The scholars said: Repentance is obligatory for every sin. If the act of disobedience is solely between the servant and Allah Most High and does not involve the right of another person, repentance has three conditions: first, that one desist from the sin; second, that one regret having committed it; and third, that one firmly resolve never to return to it. If any one of these three is absent, the repentance is invalid.

“If the act of disobedience involves another person, repentance has four conditions: these three, together with absolving oneself of the other person’s right. If it concerns money or the like, one must return it to that person. If it entails a prescribed punishment for false accusation or the like, one must allow that person to exact it or seek his pardon. If it concerns backbiting, one must seek his forgiveness for it. One must repent of all sins. If one repents of only some of them, then, according to the scholars of truth, one’s repentance from that sin is valid, while the remaining sins remain upon one. The proofs from the Quran, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the Muslim community establishing the obligation of repentance are abundant.”3 He then cited