the repentance of an adherent of innovation under any circumstances,” has made a grievous error.

As for the statement, “Allah has not permitted an adherent of innovation to repent,” its meaning is that, so long as he remains an adherent of innovation and regards it as good, he does not repent of it. But if Allah shows him that it is reprehensible, he repents of it, just as a disbeliever comes to recognize that he is misguided. Indeed, it is well known that many who followed an innovation came to recognize its misguidance, and Allah accepted their repentance from it. Only Allah can count their number.

When Ibn ‘Abbās was sent to the “Khawārij” and debated with them, half of them, or thereabouts, abandoned their position and repented. Others among them repented through ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz and others. Some heard religious knowledge being taught and repented; such cases are numerous.

This category of wrongdoing, whose perpetrators do not know it to be reprehensible, is widespread among those who face the qiblah in prayer, and is general among others. Likewise, the obligations a person neglects without knowing that they are obligatory are very numerous. Then, when he learns what good he had neglected—including affirming Allah’s oneness and having faith—and what sinful deeds he had been commanded to repent of and seek forgiveness for, the penitent repents of the duties owed to Allah Most High that he had neglected, squandered, or failed to fulfil, just as he repents of the evil deeds he committed.

Even if he committed those deeds and neglected those duties before the message reached him, it is through the message that he becomes deserving of punishment for those omissions and actions. Otherwise, as for his having committed blameworthy misdeeds and neglected good deeds whose omission is blameworthy, he had been repentant before that, as explained above. We have mentioned the “two views”: the view of those who deny both blame and punishment, and the view of those who affirm both blame and punishment.