Returning Stolen Money After Repentance, with Fear of Exposure
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
We are concluding this session, Honorable Shaykh, with a question we received from one of our brother listeners. He says: A person committed theft of money from someone a long time ago, then he repented to Allah. Now he wants to return the stolen money to its owner, but he fears the certain exposure that the owner would cause if he knew who the thief was. This person has been covered by Allah and not exposed. What is the solution? May Allah bless you.
Answer:
If he has repented to Allah with a valid repentance, then praise be to Allah for the repentance. He must increase his seeking of forgiveness, and he must return the money to its owner. It is necessary to return the money to its owner, because the rights of people are not dropped by repentance. It is necessary to return them to their owners. That is, repentance does not precede the return of rights between the servant and his Lord. Rather, it is necessary to return the rights to their people. So he must return this money to its owner by any means, even in a hidden way, so that the owner does not know where his money came from. He can send it to him by mail, or send it with a person without giving him his name, or something similar to that. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh, and may Allah bless you and your knowledge, and may He benefit Islam and the Muslims through you.
We are concluding this session, Honorable Shaykh, with a question we received from one of our brother listeners. He says: A person committed theft of money from someone a long time ago, then he repented to Allah. Now he wants to return the stolen money to its owner, but he fears the certain exposure that the owner would cause if he knew who the thief was. This person has been covered by Allah and not exposed. What is the solution? May Allah bless you.
Answer:
If he has repented to Allah with a valid repentance, then praise be to Allah for the repentance. He must increase his seeking of forgiveness, and he must return the money to its owner. It is necessary to return the money to its owner, because the rights of people are not dropped by repentance. It is necessary to return them to their owners. That is, repentance does not precede the return of rights between the servant and his Lord. Rather, it is necessary to return the rights to their people. So he must return this money to its owner by any means, even in a hidden way, so that the owner does not know where his money came from. He can send it to him by mail, or send it with a person without giving him his name, or something similar to that. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh, and may Allah bless you and your knowledge, and may He benefit Islam and the Muslims through you.
Source
نور على الدرب - الفوزان - 03/150 — archive.org (20:11)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.