But there has been planted in it the sparks of capacity and...

But there has been planted in it the sparks of capacity and capability to attain any kind of station. Its nature ( fitrah ) is straight and its essence carries intrinsic luminosity. But commission of sins causes obscurity within the heart and this obfuscation increases with the number of sins until it becomes totally darkened. The light of intrinsic nature is extinguished and changed into abiding wretchedness.

But between these two states, before the onset of total darkness over the heart’s tablet, if it awakes from its slumber of negligence, this state of awakening is followed by that of repentance. The benefit arising from this state - with the conditions to be mentioned, God willing, in the following pages - becomes complete and the soul returns from the darkness and obscurity of carnal nature to the light of original nature and its essential spirituality.

In other words, it becomes again like a tablet devoid of virtues and vices., as mentioned in the famous hadith : التَّائِبُ مِنَ الذَّنْبِ كَمَنْ لا ذَنْبَ لَهُ. One who repents from sin is like one who has not sinned.[^2] This shows that tawbah in reality is a return from the domain of physical nature ( tabi’ah ) and its laws to the domain of spirituality and primordial nature ( fitrah ).

Similarly, the reality of inabah is return from fitrah and spirituality to God and setting out and migrating from the soul’s habitat to its ultimate destination. Hence the station of tawbah is prior to that of inabah and an elaboration of this point is not proper for these pages.

Tawbah And Postponement An important point whose awareness is necessary for the wayfarer of the path of guidance and salvation is that success in a complete and sound repentance, meeting all its conditions (to be mentioned), is a difficult thing and rarely attainable. The indulgence in sin, especially the major and mortal ones, causes man to become totally forgetful of tawbah .

If the tree of sinfulness growing in the orchard of the human heart reaches maturity and fruition, its roots becoming strong, the results are calamitous, one of which is to turn away man totally from repentance.

Even if once in a while it comes to his mind, he keeps on postponing it from day to day and from one month to another, telling himself, “I will make a sound repentance at the end of my life and in old age,” forgetting that this is a Divine stratagem: ﴿وَاللَّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ.﴾ And God is the best of devisers.

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