for Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” He also said:

“Except those who repent, believe, and do righteous deeds: Allah will replace their evil deeds with good deeds. And Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

“And whoever repents and does righteous deeds truly turns to Allah in repentance.”

He also said:

“Indeed, I am Most Forgiving to whoever repents, believes, and does righteous deeds, then remains rightly guided.”

When Kaʿb ibn Mālik and his two companions repented, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ordered the Muslims—even their wives—to shun them for eighty nights.

Concerning the Ghāmidī woman, when he had her stoned, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“She has repented so sincerely that, were a collector of unlawful tolls to repent in the same way, he would be forgiven. Have you found anything better than her giving up her own life for Allah?”

Allah has also told us of His acceptance of the repentance of the Children of Israel, when Moses said to them:

“O my people, you have certainly wronged yourselves by taking the calf for worship. So repent to your Creator and kill one another. That is better for you in the sight of your Creator.”

If Allah Most High may test His servant with good and ill, prosperity and adversity, revealing whether he responds with gratitude and patience or ingratitude and anguish, and with obedience or disobedience, then one who repents has all the more reason to be tested. Adam was therefore sent down to earth as a test, and Allah enabled him to obey Him after his descent. His condition after descending was thus better than it had been before.

This is quite different from what would follow if invoking the decree had been of any avail to him: he would then have been entirely free of blame, and there would have been no repentance requiring that he be subjected to a trial.

Furthermore, Allah has related in His Book the punishments inflicted upon the disbelievers, such as the people of