Does Allah accept the repentance of one who repented from calling to falsehood, after this falsehood had spread?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: Regarding the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Does one who repented from calling to falsehood, after this falsehood had spread, have his repentance accepted by Allah, or does the warning in this hadith apply to him?
Answer:
Whoever repents, Allah accepts his repentance. If he was calling to misguidance and then repented, becoming one who calls to the truth, Allah accepts his repentance. However, he must announce his repentance to the people, and he must refute his previous writings or recorded tapes of calling to falsehood. He must refute these books and tapes with words that show his retraction, so that no one can argue based on his past actions. If he states this clearly and explains it, he has cleared himself. But if he remains silent, people will argue based on his past actions, not knowing that he repented, or they will not believe that he repented.
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. This questioner says: Regarding the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)
Whoever calls to misguidance will have a share of the sins of those who follow him, without that diminishing anything from their sins.
من دعا إلى ضلالة كان له من آثام من تبعه لا ينقص ذلك من آثامهم شيئاAnswer:
Whoever repents, Allah accepts his repentance. If he was calling to misguidance and then repented, becoming one who calls to the truth, Allah accepts his repentance. However, he must announce his repentance to the people, and he must refute his previous writings or recorded tapes of calling to falsehood. He must refute these books and tapes with words that show his retraction, so that no one can argue based on his past actions. If he states this clearly and explains it, he has cleared himself. But if he remains silent, people will argue based on his past actions, not knowing that he repented, or they will not believe that he repented.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، هل من تاب من الدعوة إلى الباطل، وقد انتشر هذا الباطل يتوب الله عليه؟ لمعالي الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.