The Meaning of the Hadith: (Allah refused to make repentance for the one who commits religious innovation . . . . . ) .

The Shaykh : There is a sound hadith from the Messenger (peace be upon him) that many people might assume is the same as the hadith you mentioned. What is the hadith? This is a valid hadith, but perhaps the narrator understood it incorrectly or his memory was faulty, so he narrated this phrase which is valid in that it means Allah does not accept the repentance of an innovator. No. It does not mean that if he repents with a sincere repentance, Allah will not accept his repentance, for the reason I mentioned earlier. So what does mean? This is refusal, which is called in the language of scholars "ontological refusal" (ibā' kawnī) and not "legal refusal" (ibā' shar'ī). In other words, Allah the Exalted said: So, are these acts of disbelief, these acts of shirk, and these sins that occur in this universe by the will of Allah or not? The answer is: reflect on the verse. If you do not have a prior concept that the will of Allah encompasses everything, and therefore it came in the creed of faith in Allah and His angels, at the end of which is "and in the divine decree, its good and its evil," then both good and evil are by the will and decree of Allah. This is what they mean by saying that this is ontological will. So the hadith means that Allah refused, in terms of ontological will, to make repentance available to the one who commits bid'ah (religious innovation), but this is not legal will. So, if the mushrik (one who associates partners with Allah) repents, is his repentance accepted? His repentance is accepted, as evidenced by what has come before and other proofs. There is a will that is opposed by a prior will: the ontological will is opposed by the legal will. So there is a very big difference between the legal will and the ontological will. The ontological will encompasses good and evil, guidance and misguidance, faith and disbelief. What is this called? It is called ontological will, which is opposed by the legal will. The legal will is specific to good, specific to faith. Allah the Exalted said: This is a clear verse in the Qur'an: No. Our brother was mistaken because we are in the process of saying that the ontological will is comprehensive. The ontological will is comprehensive. Iblis, when he disbelieved, it was not against the will of the Lord of the Worlds, may He be exalted from that, but rather by the will of Allah, Mighty and Majestic. But this is ontological will, not legal will, because the legal will does not encompass disbelief.