The Ruling on the Deeds of an Apostate Who Repents
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
This questioner asks: If a person apostatizes from his religion, may Allah protect us from that, and then repents to Allah and returns to the religion of Islam, are his good deeds that he performed before the apostasy counted for him or not?
Answer:
There is scholarly disagreement on this. One view is that if he repents to Allah, his deeds return to him. Some scholars say his deeds are not invalidated, but he starts anew. Shaykh al-‘Inbaz (may Allah have mercy on him) holds the first view to be stronger: that his deeds return to him if he repents to Allah the Exalted. Yes.
This questioner asks: If a person apostatizes from his religion, may Allah protect us from that, and then repents to Allah and returns to the religion of Islam, are his good deeds that he performed before the apostasy counted for him or not?
Answer:
There is scholarly disagreement on this. One view is that if he repents to Allah, his deeds return to him. Some scholars say his deeds are not invalidated, but he starts anew. Shaykh al-‘Inbaz (may Allah have mercy on him) holds the first view to be stronger: that his deeds return to him if he repents to Allah the Exalted. Yes.
Source
شرح نواقض الإسلام [ صالح الفوزان ]، الناقض التاسع : من اعتقد أن بعض الناس يسعه الخروج عن شريعة محمد - صلى الله عليه وسلم - كما وسع الخضر الخروج عن شريعة موسى - عليه السلام -؛ فهو كافر — islamhouse.com (46:00)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.