First: Repentance from one sin is valid even while a person persists in another, if the motive for repenting of one is stronger than the motive for repenting of the other, or the deterrent to one is stronger. This is the well-known position among both the early and later scholars.

A group of speculative theologians, such as Abū Hāshim, held that repentance from one evil deed is invalid while a person persists in another. They argued: “Unless repentance is motivated by fear of Allah, it is not valid repentance; yet fear of Allah restrains a person from all sins, not merely some of them.”

Al-Qādī Abū Ya‘lā and Ibn ‘Aqīl related this as a position reported from Ahmad, because al-Marwadhī reported that Ahmad was asked about someone who had repented of sexual immorality and said, “If I fell ill, I would not return to it,” but would not give up looking. Ahmad replied:

“What sort of repentance is this? Jarīr ibn ‘Abd Allāh said: ‘I asked the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, about an inadvertent glance, and he said: “Avert your gaze.”’”

The well-known position of Ahmad and the other imams, however, is that such repentance is valid. In this case, Ahmad meant only that this was not comprehensive repentance by which the person would be counted, without qualification, among the repentant. He did not mean that this person’s sin was equivalent to that of someone who persists in major sins. His statements transmitted through numerous independent reports, together with his firmly established pronouncements, contradict such an interpretation.

It is more appropriate to interpret an imam’s statements in a way that makes them mutually consistent than to interpret them as contradictory—especially when the alternative position is an innovation not known to have been held by any of the early scholars. Ahmad says: