The Ruling on Repentance from Sins That a Servant Does Not Know
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Naif from Taif, please go ahead, my brother Naif. Hello, peace be upon you. And upon you, peace.
The Shaykh:
Peace.
The questioner:
Shaykh, I have two questions. Please, the first question: A person says, “I want to repent from sins I do not know about, such as words I may have uttered that contained mockery of the religion, or actions I am not aware of. How do I repent from them? Do I have to pronounce the two testimonies of faith, or is it enough to just repent?” Okay, the Shaykh will answer, the Shaykh will answer this.
The Shaykh:
My brother, what you do not know is not subject to repentance. You do not know if you committed such and such a sin and sought forgiveness; that is required, and Allah forgives whoever repents and seeks forgiveness. As for you saying you do not know them, in the hadith: If you bring this from the perspective of precaution and seek Allah’s forgiveness for sins, both those you know and those you do not know, that is good. Yes.
Naif from Taif, please go ahead, my brother Naif. Hello, peace be upon you. And upon you, peace.
The Shaykh:
Peace.
The questioner:
Shaykh, I have two questions. Please, the first question: A person says, “I want to repent from sins I do not know about, such as words I may have uttered that contained mockery of the religion, or actions I am not aware of. How do I repent from them? Do I have to pronounce the two testimonies of faith, or is it enough to just repent?” Okay, the Shaykh will answer, the Shaykh will answer this.
The Shaykh:
My brother, what you do not know is not subject to repentance. You do not know if you committed such and such a sin and sought forgiveness; that is required, and Allah forgives whoever repents and seeks forgiveness. As for you saying you do not know them, in the hadith:
I seek Your forgiveness for the sin for which I seek Your forgiveness, for the sin for which I do not
أستغفرك من الذنب الذي أستغفرك من الذنب الذي لا
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، 1988 - حكم التوبة من الذنوب التي لا يعلمها العبد - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.