Never Giving Up Tawbah, However Often the Sin Returns

Some key matters follow concerning tawbah. A person should not give up on tawbah simply because the same ḥarām, the same sin, keeps recurring; rather, tawbah should be renewed again and again while striving to fulfil its conditions — the three conditions already set out.

It is related in Tanbīh al-Ghāfilīn by Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī (may Allah have mercy on him), and others, that Sulaymān (peace be upon him) once saw one of his viziers in great distress, deeply unhappy. "What happened to you?" he asked. "Nothing," came the answer. "What's wrong? Is everything all right?" Only then did the vizier admit: "You are a prophet of Allah — I need your advice. I don't know what to do." There was a particular sin he kept committing. He would make tawbah, cry out to Allah (swt), constantly ask forgiveness — and then, in a moment of weakness, fall into the same ḥarām again. Once, twice, three times, ten times, twenty times, this tawbah was repeated, until one day he said to himself: "What am I doing — I am making a mockery of Allah (swt), I am mocking Him, knowing I will do this again" — and so, that time, he could not bring himself to make tawbah at all, feeling altogether wretched inside.

At that, Jibrīl (peace be upon him) came and told Sulaymān (peace be upon him): "Tell My servant to go on making tawbah. If he is capable of sinning, I am capable of forgiving his sin each time" — each time he sins, he is forgiven; that is the law of Allah (swt). Tawbah of Allah (swt) is never, ever to be given up, so long as it is made sincerely, with real resolve and real remorse in the heart, leaving the sin and resolving never to return to it.