People have differed over whether “obligation and prohibition” can truly exist without punishment for noncompliance, holding two views. Some say they cannot: if a person is not punished, the act is effectively permissible. Others say they can: the person must still be blameworthy, even if he is not punished. The truth of the matter is that punishment is of “two kinds”: punishment through suffering, which may be waived because of abundant good deeds; and punishment through a reduction in rank and deprivation of what one would otherwise have deserved. The latter occurs when the former does not.

Allah Most High expiates the sins of the wrongdoer, as He says:

“If you avoid the major sins you are forbidden, We will absolve you of your lesser sins and admit you to a place of honour.”

Sometimes He expiates them through afflictions, so that the person’s rank remains as it was, or may even rise. He also expiates them through acts of obedience, but someone who did not commit those sins holds a higher rank. The sinner is thus deprived of the reward for the acts of obedience offset against his sins. This, too, is something of which a person who wishes to avoid loss repents. Someone who has neglected recommended acts also repents, so that he may obtain the reward they entail. Repentance therefore encompasses all these people.

A person’s repentance concerning his good deeds takes several forms. First, he repents and seeks forgiveness for his shortcomings in performing them. Second, he repents of deeds he thought were good but which were not, as is the case with the people of religious innovation. Third, he repents of his self-admiration and his view that he himself performed those deeds and that they were accomplished