Repentance means turning back to Allah.
The conditions of repentance are as follows:
- To abandon the sin from which one is repenting—an absolute, final abandonment.
- Never to return to that sin again, under any circumstances.
- To feel genuine remorse for having committed it.
When these conditions are met, the repentance is sound and accepted; it wipes away what preceded it of sin. No fasting is attached to the act of repentance itself.
Whoever wishes to fast voluntarily, outside the context of repentance, may do so—the doors of voluntary fasting are wide open: three days of every month, Mondays and Thursdays, as well as any of the other days on which fasting is recommended. All of this, however, is optional worship and has no connection to repentance.
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Traveling to Offer Condolences
Question: If a person’s relative or friend dies in a town other than the one he lives in, is it permissible for him to travel there to offer condolences and console the family of the deceased, or would such a journey be considered an impermissible act of “undertaking a special journey”?
Answer: If the condolence gathering includes innovations (bidʿah) and superstitious practices—such as the formal mourning assemblies held in some places—then it is not permissible for him to participate, whether he travels or stays where he is, because these are reprehensible innovations. If the gathering involves arranging mourning receptions, wailing, and other practices performed by the innovators, it is an evil that a person must not attend, neither by traveling there nor by remaining with them; traveling for that purpose is even more blameworthy.