The Path Back To Allah: Practical Steps For Tawbah

Sin, Shame, and the Path Back to Allah

Many times as human beings we see sin as a problem. When we sin or when we make a mistake, many of us have the reaction of — we become withdrawn from Allah. We despair from Allah.

We feel so ashamed that many of us, we don't even address the topic with Allah. Just leave it in a dark corner. Let's not talk about it.

Why is that? Because many of us, the way we perceive sin, the way we perceive mistakes — we perceive it as something horrible, something to be ashamed of, something disgusting, something bad for us. The Prophet ﷺ informs us in a hadith narrated by Anas in Sahih Muslim that Allah is more happy and pleased by someone who makes a mistake, does something wrong, and returns to Him — more happy than if you were perfect. He wants you to make a mistake and return, make a mistake and come back.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 37, Hadith 6618)

Why would that please Allah? Why wouldn't perfection please Allah? This is actually the question that the angels asked Allah when He decided to create human beings. Allah says, "I am going to create a successor on this earth." Why would you create somebody who is going to spill blood and do so many wrong things? We are perfect. We praise You. Whatever You tell us to do, we do. Why would you create someone rebellious, someone with the capacity to sin, someone with the capacity to make mistakes? Why would you do that? Oh Allah, it doesn't make any sense.

Of course, it doesn't make sense to them. So Allah responds to them: "You be quiet. I know what you don't know. Just watch. Watch what I'm about to do."

He taught Adam ﷺ all the names. Allah says, "I'm going to create this being who has the capacity to — they make decisions. This human being has choices. They can decide to betray Me or they can decide to obey Me." The angels said, "That doesn't make any sense. Just keep creating us. We'll just keep obeying You all the time." But Allah said, "No, I want you to watch what I'm about to do." And He taught him all the names. And then He says, "See, I told you it was worth creating him."

But what are these names? Allah just said "all the names." He didn't say what names, which names, the names of which things. And so scholars have always debated what these names are referring to. But I'm going to here say that the opinion of the scholars that I most lean towards is that the names Allah told Adam are His names — the names of Allah. As though to say to the angels: yes, this weak human being may have the ability to murder somebody and make mistakes and do all sorts of wrong things — but if he or she understands who I am, they can beat you in their worship, angels. They can be ahead of you in their worship, not because they will be perfect, but because every time they slip, they will come back to Me running.

The Four Phases of Tawbah

The same phases, the same steps you have to go through to come back to Allah are the same steps that a doctor or a psychologist will take a drug addict on in order to get out of the addiction — the same steps.

Phase One: Awareness and Realization

Let's say you find somebody — they're addicted to cocaine, you find them in the roads, they're injecting themselves, they're sniffing something — and you grab them, you say, "Habibi, do you know that you are sick and this is wrong and it's going to ruin your life?" He says, "No, everything's fine. Stop bothering me." So this person is still stuck in phase one. They don't even realize something is wrong. You need to bring them to the point of realization.

In tawbah, in returning to Allah, this is the first step. The first step is being aware of the gravity, the weight, the seriousness of your sin. Many of us sitting here have become numb to sin. We do it morning, night, day after day and we feel nothing. We have reached the same point as somebody smoking 60 cigarettes a day and they feel nothing. No guilt, no shame, no pain, nothing. We have become desensitized.

It's the same feeling many people feel as you scroll and you see video after video of children being killed in Gaza. Maybe two years ago when the whole thing started, maybe you were crying, you were upset, you were feeling — but after two years now you're looking at it thinking: swipe, scroll, what's the next thing? I'm tired of seeing this. It doesn't move me anymore.

A true believer — when you think about your sins, you feel like there's a mountain on your shoulders that's about to collapse on you. You feel that it is weighty. But a hypocrite, a pretend believer, they feel that their sins are just a fly. "Just get out of my way, please. I've got other things to do today. I'm in a rush."

And so this is the first phase in returning to Allah — coming out of this numbness, this desensitivity, where you don't actually feel the effect of a sin. You don't feel it at all.

The challenge with sins is that many of us have become so desensitized that we don't even realize we're piling them on every day. We have become completely numb to them. And this is the first step that any drug coach or rehab psychologist is trying to get a drug addict to realize: something is patently wrong with me and I need to address it. And it's the same thing with you and me.

How do you get to the point where you realize something is seriously wrong? If I don't address these sins, they're going to consume me. We have to realize that sins have an effect on us — a real effect on us. The Prophet ﷺ says:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Book 44, Hadith 3334 — graded Hasan Sahih)

"Every time somebody makes a mistake or commits a sin, a black dot is placed on their heart. This continues until the heart is completely covered — it is rusted."

I want you to think about a bicycle that you've left out in the rain, and the gears are completely rusted. Can you ride the bicycle? It doesn't operate, it doesn't move, it's out of operation, it's past maintenance — you need a new bicycle, it's gone. This is the same thing with the heart.

When you continue to sin, you don't feel the pain of the sin anymore. It accumulates and accumulates. You get to a point Allah describes in the Quran as the sealing of the heart:

The heart is so rusted, it is so covered, that it is now lifeless — meaning you don't feel Salah, you don't feel reminders, you skip your Salahs, you hurt others, insult others, attack others, you cross boundaries and you feel nothing. Congratulations — you've reached the point of no return, which is the point at which the heart has been sealed and it needs some serious action. It needs CPR. It needs to be jolted back to life. It needs serious action, because this is not something small.

The death of the heart is the real death. The soul is the real essence of the human being, and if the soul dies, if the heart dies — that's it, it's game over for you and me. Everything then goes away with it. You become so numb to whatever you're involved in that you just continue going day in and day out.

And so this is the first thing: realization.

Phase Two: Guilt, Shame, and Remorse

After realization, there's a second phase — the phase of guilt and shame and regret and remorse. Once you realize there's something wrong — the things I've been doing, whether it's with my tongue or with my eyes or with my ears or with my hands, or the way I've treated others — there has to be a feeling of guilt in your heart for your heart to be alive.

When somebody is dying or somebody is unconscious, the doctor comes and checks their pulse. They put two fingers on their wrist to check: is this person still alive? If you want to check the pulse of your spiritual heart, you just have to check one thing: when I do something wrong, do I feel any guilt? If I don't feel any guilt, that means it needs some serious action, serious intervention. A small thing is not going to work. I need to visit the graveyard. I need to go to the hospital. I need to go and see people who are seriously ill, people who are dying, people who are struggling. I need someone to slap me back into reality, because something is seriously wrong with me.

And so the second phase is regret and remorse and guilt. The Prophet ﷺ, when he describes this, he says the essence of returning to Allah is feeling that guilty sensation when something goes wrong.

"Remorse is repentance." (Sunan Ibn Majah, Book 37, Hadith 4252 — graded Sahih)

Phase Three: Making an Action Plan and Firm Commitment

The third phase is making an action plan. Somebody who's an addict, somebody who's got a serious issue — after they've realized, after they feel guilty, after they've sat down — they need a solution now. The doctor says to them: "Look, now we need to make a 60-day plan, a 30-day plan. How are you going to slowly but surely get yourself off this thing that you keep needing to consume?" You need an action plan. You need to make a firm decision: I am never going to return to this. Once you've committed, now we can start recovering.

And so the same way, the third step in repentance or returning to Allah is making a commitment — a commitment that you are never ever going back to the sin that you made. For you to commit to it, you've got to realize something was wrong in the first place.

Phase Four: Repairing the Rights of Others

And then there's a fourth step: if I wronged a person, I need to return their rights. If I scammed somebody, if I took their rights, I need to apologize. If I backbited somebody, I need to make du'a for them in their absence. I need to go and repair what I've broken.

The Four R's of Returning to Allah

And so if I were to summarize the steps of returning to Allah, it's four steps:

1. Regret — Regret the action.
2. Resolve — Make a firm decision not to return to it.
3. Redeem — If you've wronged somebody, you've got to redeem yourself.
4. Repair — There is a constant repair that you need to do to repair what was lost in the heart.

The Devil's Long-Term Strategy

You see, the devil's goal is not that you commit a sin. No, no — he's much more strategic. He thinks in hundred-year horizons, not in ten-minute horizons. He's much more long-term than you and I. The devil's goal is: how can I drag these people to a point where they have no clothes on and they are completely exposed, they have reached a level where they are to the level of animals? That's where I want to take them. I want them to forget their humanity. I want them to lose the dignity of a human being. It's not even about kufr — it's something deeper, something more disgusting, something more depriving than that. I want human beings to get to a point where they feel nudity is normal, where they feel having no clothes on is normal. That's my end goal, the devil says. It's not just about a fruit. The fruit is the beginning. But if I can get you to a point where you are shameless, you've lost consciousness of Allah, and you've lost all sense of decency — that's where I want you. Now I have you. That is the end goal of the devil.

And you see, this is why Abdullah ibn Mas'ud says: sins are a series of dominoes. Nobody wakes up one day deciding, "I'm a righteous person — today I'm going to commit zina." Nobody ever does that. It all starts with a direct message, and becoming comfortable, and becoming desensitized — and the next thing you know there's more and more and more, and the bar keeps moving, and the line keeps moving, until the day where you wake up and the impulse to be intimate with somebody you're not married to feels completely normal. And here — this is where he wants you to be.

And so this is the thing about the story of Adam: the devil always thinks long-term. The devil is strategic. But us as Muslims, unfortunately, we're always stuck in the short-term tactical trap. The devil works very slowly to bring you to a point where you feel you've justified the sin before you even do it.

The Secret of Tawbah — Ibn al-Qayyim's Insight

Ibn al-Qayyim, when he talks about repentance, he says: there is a secret in returning to Allah that most people don't know. And he says this is the greatest secret. And this secret is that Allah, when you commit a sin, is teaching you about Himself and His names and His attributes — by you constantly committing sins and constantly returning to Him.

Think how? The first thing — when you commit a sin, oftentimes nobody has seen you except you. And Allah has covered you. So you remember Allah's name, As-Sattar — Allah is the One who doesn't expose you, He covers you.

Number two — when you commit a sin, Allah could send a lightning bolt from the sky and finish you off straight away — He has all the right. But He delays your punishment until the Day of Judgment. This is Allah's tolerance: Al-Haleem.

When you commit a sin, one of the greatest benefits of sinning is that it reminds you that you are fallible, and you are human, and you're not perfect — and it humbles you down, and it brings you to the point of sujood. And this is one of the greatest gifts from Allah, that Allah guides you to Him by causing you to sin, by pushing you into sin — it makes you come right back to Him. And this is Allah Al-Hadi — the great Guide.

When you sin, when you make a mistake, you ask Allah's forgiveness and He forgives you. And imagine how amazing it is, and how generous Allah is — not just that He tolerates you on a day-to-day basis, but even when you turn against Him, He still tolerates, and He forgives you, and He has mercy on you, and He wipes it clean. What is this except Al-Raheem, Al-Ghafoor, Al-Jawad, Al-Kareem. How many names of Allah can come into this one interaction.

Repentance is the engine of your train that's going towards Allah. It is an engine that's constantly working. You fall and you get back up. You fall and you get better. You fall and you get better. Until one day you realize you have grown so strong — because you have so many wounds, and you have torn so many muscles, and you have fought off so many diseases — you are invincible now.

And this is really where repentance is taking you. Repentance — making mistakes, committing crimes — is not taking you far from Allah. If you bounce back, it is the greatest way to the closest of Allah, and to knowing Him and understanding Him. And this is the secret about returning to Allah that most people don't know.

You see, many of us, when we make mistakes, we think very lowly of ourselves. We feel broken to the extent that we continue sinning and continue this negative cycle. But the most important thing you should realize is this: sinning and returning to Allah is the greatest growth engine of closeness to Him. It is the secret of the Awliya. The Awliya are not close to Allah because they are perfect. They are the closest people to Allah because they are the quickest to bounce back to Him.

The Example of Abu Huraira and the Constant Return

No matter how much you've done, and how perfect you are, and how great you are, and how much dhikr you've done, and how much ibadah you've done — you still have not done enough. And this is why Abdul Rahman ibn Sakhar al-Dawsi — who is he? That is Abu Huraira, may Allah be pleased with him. That is his real name, not his nickname. His kunya is Abu Huraira. His name is Abdul Rahman ibn Sakhar al-Dawsi. He used to ask Allah's forgiveness 12,000 times a day, because he used to say: if the Prophet ﷺ asked a hundred times, I need to multiply to the power of ten, because that's my level of sins compared to his.

Now I'm not saying that this is possible for you and I. Many of us still haven't done five times a day, let alone ten, let alone 12,000. But what is the key thing? One of the most important parts of tawbah, and why it is a constant state you have to keep returning to every day of your life, is because you can never feel comfortable with what you have done. If you have felt comfortable — you're finished.

The Example of Ibrahim ﷺ

Ibrahim ﷺ — Father of the Prophets, great Messenger of Allah. He built the Ka'bah. He finished building the Ka'bah and said:

"Oh Allah, protect me and my children from worshipping idols." One second — the Father of Monotheism, of tawheed, is saying "Oh Allah, protect me from worshipping idols." Why? "Allah already said you and your children are going to be prophets — don't worry." Why is he still saying, "Oh Allah, protect me from idol worship?" He's worried that there's no guarantee for him tomorrow. He's in a constant state of alertness: I don't know when the rug will be pulled from under me. I don't know what shortcoming I have, what mistake I have. I can never feel safe. I can never feel like I've done everything and everything is going to be fine.

"Oh Allah, accept my deeds. You are the Hearing, the Knowing." Does Ibrahim ﷺ need to worry about his deeds being accepted? Yes — he needs to be worried, because if you're not worried, you're in trouble.

Tawbah Is Obligatory — Do Not Delay

Repentance and returning to Allah is not optional. It is obligatory. Many people don't realize this. They think it's a nice thing to do, a nice thing to ask Allah's forgiveness. Every sin you have ever committed and I have ever committed — it is obligatory to ask Allah's forgiveness, and delaying it is another sin. If you and I have delayed our repentance, then we have committed two sins: the first is the original sin we didn't repent for, and the second is that we delayed.

The person who delayed his repentance until the end of his life — who repented too late — was Fir'awn. As he is drowning in the sea and the angels are shoving water into his mouth, he says: "I repent to Allah. I return to Him and I believe in Him." And Allah responds:

"Now?" You might wonder why there is such a long stretch on this alif — آلْآنَ — it's because he took such a long time to return to Allah.

Return to Allah now, today — because tomorrow is not guaranteed. Returning to Allah is not a one-off deed, but a constant growth engine every day. Just like someone who wants to grow their muscles has to tear them, just like an athlete has to feel the pain, just like your immune system needs to feel disease to get stronger — you need to sin and get back up and strengthen yourself to come close to Allah.