Confessing to a Sin and Covering Up One’s Own Faults
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, is it prescribed for a man to go to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and confess to the evil he has done, or is it better for a person to cover up his own faults if he does something bad?
Answer:
What is it that he covers up? What is it that he mentions to the Messenger for a purpose, which is purity? His intention is purity. Does it invalidate it or not? If it were not regarding purity, he could cover up his own fault, but regarding purity, he does not cover up his own fault; he remains in ignorance and prays without ablution.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, is it prescribed for a man to go to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and confess to the evil he has done, or is it better for a person to cover up his own faults if he does something bad?
Answer:
What is it that he covers up? What is it that he mentions to the Messenger for a purpose, which is purity? His intention is purity. Does it invalidate it or not? If it were not regarding purity, he could cover up his own fault, but regarding purity, he does not cover up his own fault; he remains in ignorance and prays without ablution.
Source
شرح كتاب المنتقى من أخبار المصطفى صلى الله عليه وسلم، بداية من باب الوضوء من مس المرأة — islamhouse.com (48:56)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.