Imām Ibn Qudāmah -rahimahullāh- said:
Categories of Servants as Regard Repentance.
Know verily that, people are of different levels as regards repentance:
First Level:
These are those who remain firm and resolve as regards their repentance from a certain flaw till the end of their life, and they always hasten to catch up that which they neglected in the past, and it doesn’t cross their mind to go back to the sin again, except some little errors which cannot be erased completely in the nature of man. Thus, this is a form of high determination, discipline and resolve in terms of repentance, and this type of people are the foremost ones in deeds of goodness.
And this repentance is called a truthful repentance and the soul is called _soul that is at rest_. Amongst these foremost ones in deeds of goodness, are those who succumbed their desires totally to the extent that the driving force is completely absent, and of them are those who struggle with their heart in order to suppress their desires.
Second Level:
These are those who stick to the path of firmness in obedience and they are not found wanting as regard the Major sins, except that, at times, they use to slightly deviate from the path. However, this is not done deliberately, but they are only tried by it due to their weakness.
Thus, whenever they fall into some errors, they blame themselves and regret and make a resolve of safeguarding any means that might lead to it, and this type of soul is called the _Accusing Soul_; this is because the soul always blames its owner on falling into a blameworthy situation, and this is also high level indeed though it is not up to the first level in merits; and this is the situation that’s common amongst the repenters; for man is bound to err, but the main issue is for his goodness to supersede his bad deeds so that it can outweigh the bad deeds on the day of qiyāmah, but for a man to be completely error free, then it is far from his nature. And these type of people have good promises from Allāh Ta’āla.
In this context, Allāh says:
الَّذِينَ يَجْتَنِبُونَ كَبَائِرَ الْإِثْمِ وَالْفَوَاحِشَ إِلَّا اللَّمَمَ إِنَّ رَبَّكَ وَاسِعُ الْمَغْفِرَةِ.
Those who keep aloof from the great sins and the indecencies but the passing idea; surely your Lord is liberal in forgiving.
Sūratu An-Najm, verse 32.
Allāhu A’alam! Bārakallāhu fīkum!
6th Dhul Hijjah,1439H.
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