Answered by Shaykh Abdul-Karim Yahya, SunniPath Academy Teacher
I fall into sins sometimes, especially looking at women. It is giving me a hard time. I am working on marrying, but people have made marriage so difficult and there are not too many religious, devoted sisters in my community. I want to repent. I know that if you repent from a sin and then fall into the same sin again your repentance is invalid. I have repented from looking at women, but I fall into the same sin over and over. I heard from a speaker that such repentance is insincere. So I stopped repenting for my sins. I want Allah to forgive me, but I feel that I am not sincere and commit the same sins over and over. What do you advise to do?
In The Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate
We can not give better advice than the Proof of Islam, Imam Ghazali (Allah be pleased with him) who said: “If you repent then break your repentance by returning to sin, then rush back to repentance. Say to yourself, ‘Perhaps I will die before returning to sin this time.’ Similarly, do this a third and fourth time. Just as you have made sin and returning to it a profession, make repentance and returning to it a profession. Do not be more incapable of repentance than you are of sin, nor lose hope, and do not let the Shaytan use this to prevent you from repenting. For indeed it is a sign of good. Did you not hear his [the Prophet’s] (Allah bless and grant him peace) saying, ‘The best of you are every one who is often tried and often penitent.’ Which means they are often tried by sin and repent much and return to Allah (Transcendent and Exalted is He) with remorse and seeking forgiveness. Remember the saying of Allah (Most high): ‘And he who does evil or wrongs himself, then seeks forgiveness from Allah, he will find Allah Very Forgiving, Merciful.'[4:110]” [1] And Allah knows best and He alone gives success (tawfiq).
[1] Muhammad Bin Muhammad al-Ghazali, Minhaj al-‘Abidin Ila Jannah Rabbi al-‘Alamin (Damascus, al-Dar al-Dimashqiyyah, 1422 A.H.[2002]), pp.31-32.