What is better for the Muslim: being strict with himself or falling into sin and then repenting
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: Is it better for the Muslim to be a righteous man who is strict with himself so that he never disobeys his Lord, or is the true Muslim the one who sometimes disobeys his Lord but seeks Allah's forgiveness and repents?
Answer:
He should avoid sin and stay away from it. If he falls into something of it due to the desires of the soul or Satan's embellishment, he should hasten to repent, and he should strive to stay away from it and abandon it.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. The questioner says: Is it better for the Muslim to be a righteous man who is strict with himself so that he never disobeys his Lord, or is the true Muslim the one who sometimes disobeys his Lord but seeks Allah's forgiveness and repents?
Answer:
He should avoid sin and stay away from it. If he falls into something of it due to the desires of the soul or Satan's embellishment, he should hasten to repent, and he should strive to stay away from it and abandon it.
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، فصل ومن حيله ومكايده : الكلام الباطل والآراء المتهافتة والخيالات — islamhouse.com (56:58)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.