(119) “Then indeed your Lord, to those who commit evil out of ignorance and afterward repent and mend their ways—surely after that your Lord is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

This is an encouragement from Him to His servants to repent and an invitation to turn back to Him. He informs us that anyone who commits an evil deed through ignorance of the consequences it will bring upon him—even if he commits the sin deliberately—must necessarily have suffered a diminution in the knowledge within his heart at the time he committed the sin. If he then repents and makes amends by abandoning the sin, regretting it (1), and reforming his deeds, Allah will forgive him, have mercy on him, accept his repentance, and restore him to his former state or to one even better than it.