( 3:54 ) Don’t imagine that man can perform tawbah after the...

( 3:54 ) Don’t imagine that man can perform tawbah after the strengthening of the roots of sinfulness or meet its conditions. Therefore, the springtime for tawbah is the time of-youth when the sins are fewer, the inner darkness of the heart incomplete, the conditions of tawbah easier, and their fulfillment less difficult. Moreover, man’s greed is greater in old age and so also are his love of wealth,. ambition and his hopes.

This is proved by experience and borne out by the Prophet’s noble tradition. Even if it be admitted that man can succeed in performing tawbah in old age, there is no certainty of reaching old age and-of not meeting one’s death in youth in the condition of habitual disobedience. The relative fewness of old people is also an indication of the fact that death is closer to the young. In a city of fifty thousand we do not see more than fifty octogenarians.

Therefore, my dear, beware of Satan’s guiles and abstain from playing tricks with your Lord by telling yourself: “I will lead a life of lust for some fifty years or more, and will make amends for the past by asking His pardon.” This is wishful thinking. If you have heard or read in a tradition that God Almighty has favored this ummah and accepts the repentance of its members until before the appearance of death or its signs, that is true.

But alas, that is the time when the opportunity of tawbah is taken away from man. Do you think that tawbah is a mere verbal exercise? No, such is not the case; the performance of- tawbah requires effort and hardship. The return, as well as the determination to return, requires practical effort as well as the exercise of knowledge.

Otherwise it rarely happens for a man, either to think of tawbah or to succeed in performing it, or to fulfill the conditions of its validity and acceptance, or the conditions of its perfection. And it often happens that death grants no respite for the thought of tawbah to occur, or for tawbah to materialize, as one is transferred from this habitat with the burden of weighty sins and their endless darkness. Then, only God knows what ‘misfortunes and calamities befall him.

Even if it be assumed that one is ultimately destined to salvation and felicity in the Hereafter, the atonement of sins is not an easy task in that world. It entails terrible squeezes, hardships and burnings before one becomes worthy of the intercession (of the intercessors) and the mercy of the Most Merciful.