What was taken from shops in childhood after repentance
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, this questioner says: When we were small children, we used to steal from some shops, and that was thirty years ago. We do not know the owners of the shops. Allah guided us afterward and we repented. Does what we took in the past fall away from us, given His saying:[Al-Anfal 8:38]
Answer:
No, the rights of people must be paid to them. As for the rights of Allah, yes, Allah forgives them. But the rights of people must either be forgiven by them or paid to them. However, if you no longer know them, you give in charity the amount you took, with the intention that the reward is for those from whom you took. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, this questioner says: When we were small children, we used to steal from some shops, and that was thirty years ago. We do not know the owners of the shops. Allah guided us afterward and we repented. Does what we took in the past fall away from us, given His saying:
Say to those who have disbelieved [that] if they cease, what has previously occurred will be forgiven for them
قُل لِّلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا إِن يَنتَهُوا يُغْفَرْ لَهُم مَّا قَدْ سَلَفَAnswer:
No, the rights of people must be paid to them. As for the rights of Allah, yes, Allah forgives them. But the rights of people must either be forgiven by them or paid to them. However, if you no longer know them, you give in charity the amount you took, with the intention that the reward is for those from whom you took. Yes.
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، فصل ومما ينبغي أن يعلم : أنه قد يقترن بالأيسر إثمًا ما يجعله أعظم إثمًا مما هو فوقه — islamhouse.com (1:13:02)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.