Tawba (Repentance)
By AbdelRahman Murphy | 2026-01-19T10:32:52.092679+00:00 | Topic: Spirituality
Tawba (Repentance)
AbdelRahman Murphy | IOK Khutbah | 11/22/13
Opening
In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most compassionate, the most loving. Wa ba'd.
Understanding Human Nature Through Adam's Story
Oftentimes when people want to know about the behaviors and the mindsets of individuals, we will look at their history, we'll look at their past, we'll look at a pattern of behavior that they've done or participated in from long ago so that we can understand why people do things, right? In psychology, this is known as psychoanalysis, psychodynamic theory, that we look back at people's lives to see why they do the things that they do.
If we look at our state today as human beings, as people who make mistakes, who stumble, who fail, we look back at our father, Adam (peace be upon him). And we look back at the lineage that's between us and our father, Adam (peace be upon him), and we look for the guidance and the wisdom from his story, from his narrative to see why it is we do what we do and what Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) taught Adam (peace be upon him) and subsequently taught us to respond to our struggles.
We all know the story of Adam (peace be upon him). We know that he was the first of mankind to ever be created. We know that Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) blessed him with literally uncomfortable blessings because he was placed in Jannah with his spouse, with his wife Hawwa, with his wife Eve. And he was placed there forever, only given one command, one ruling, one thing to follow, one restriction.
And that was what? Do not eat from the tree. Now Adam (peace be upon him), our father Adam (peace be upon him), was content, was fine, had no instinctual desire to chase after this tree. But Shaytan, the other creature who was jealous of Adam, who had a lot of envy towards Adam, a lot of anger towards Adam, he planted a thought, a seed.
He planted, he incepted, so to speak, a desire into Adam. And he told Adam (peace be upon him), he said, you know why you can't eat from that tree? Because if you eat from that tree, you will have eternal life. You will live like the angels.
You'll have eternal life. What's interesting is that Adam (peace be upon him) was already in Jannah. He was already in paradise.
He was already given the blessing that Shaytan was tempting him with. But, this is a lesson for us brothers and sisters, when desire encounters us, when we want to do something, sometimes that desire has the ability to suspend rational thought. To suspend rational thought.
We don't think logically about something when our desires are fueling us towards something. And we make a decision purely based off of that emotion. We don't think things through.
One of my teachers says, whenever you want to do something, take it to its logical conclusion. What will happen if you do that thing? Not how you feel, but what will happen. And so Adam (peace be upon him) was given this sprout, this temptation seed from Shaytan.
And thus he went and ate from the tree. And Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) when he called him to account, and he said, why did you eat from the tree? And Shaytan had tempted Adam. Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) taught Adam (peace be upon him):
"Then Adam received from his Lord [some] words, and He accepted his repentance."
Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) gave Adam a gift.
The Gift of Tawbah
And the gift that he gave Adam is gonna be the subject of the khutbah today. And that is tawbah, that is repentance. You see what's interesting, is that this ayah says that Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) taught Adam some words from his Lord فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ And so he repented to him.
That verily Allah is the one who accepts repentance, the most merciful. What's interesting is that why was that the moment that Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) taught Adam repentance was because Adam (peace be upon him) had never needed those words of repentance before this moment. That was the first time that Adam (peace be upon him) would need to be taught the words to turn back to Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) and say what? Oh Allah, forgive me.
Right? Oh Allah, forgive me. And an interesting side point that some of my teachers have taught is that if Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) was so angry and so vengeful and only wanted to punish his creation, which sometimes we grow up thinking this. We grow up thinking, man, this is haram, this is haram, this is haram.
Why is Allah so like this? Why is Allah always wanna punish us? You read the Quran, you read about some punishment, you're like, Allah always wants to punish. Then why on earth would Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) give us the way to repent? If Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) found happiness in punishing people, why would He give them a way to turn back? Think about that logically for a moment.
And so Adam (peace be upon him), he became the one who asked Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) for his forgiveness.
"Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers."
This is the words that Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) taught Adam. And so we learn from this that our father ate from the tree and turned back to Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He).
And so this concept of tawbah, of repentance, should be something that is innate inside of us, that is built inside of us.
Tawbah is something that we need to always fuel our life forward, to go closer to Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He). It is impossible to achieve closeness to God Almighty unless a person has a humble heart that is comfortable saying sorry. It is impossible.
The Four Steps of Tawbah
Now what is the process for tawbah? The process for tawbah, the scholars talk about there's four things that a person needs to do in order for the tawbah to be accepted. Four things, right? They say the first thing is that they need to give up on the sin immediately. And I want us all to think about this for a minute.
To give up on the sin immediately. If we need to make this a little more contextual, let's create an analogy with a relationship here on earth. Let's say for those of you who are married, it's with your spouse.
Let's say for those of you who have kids, it's with your children, or with your parents, or with your friends. Let's say a lot of the students here, it's with your homie, your closest friend, right? Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He), we're taught from the scripture that in order for our tawbah to be accepted, we need to give up the sin immediately. Now let's translate that to our relationship.
Let's say that my friend and I get into a huge fight, or my wife and I get into a very big argument, right? Because she's like, stop leaving your plates dirty on the dinner table. You guys been there before? I've been there before. You can tell, right? Stop leaving your dirty plates on the dinner table.
Every time I say sorry, but I continue to leave my plates on the table, what is my wife gonna think? That you're not sincere in your apology. You're just saying it because you wanna end the fight. Because you have guilt and you wanna get the guilt away from you.
But if you were really sincere, what would you do? You would take your plate and you would put it in the dishwasher, just like I've been asking.
And so when Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He), when we're taught that in order for Him to accept our repentance, the first step is to stop the sin. The reason why this is important brothers and sisters is because if we stop the sin, that shows us how serious we are when we ask for repentance.
That shows us how serious we are. Because if we say, sorry ya Allah, but I'm gonna turn around and continue to do the same action over and over again, what does that tell me about myself? That I'm not really that serious and I'm not really that sorry, right? And so the first step the scholars say, stop the sin.
The second is to regret what happened in the past, right? So let's go back to the plate analogy.
I leave the plate on the table, it's dirty, dinner was delicious. Every time I leave the plate on the table, my wife gets upset, I keep saying sorry, then we have people over, right? We have a nice big dinner party, some people, some friends come over. And let's say that I started to change my behavior.
Let's say that I finally started putting the plate in the dishwasher, right? But then let's say when people come over, I'm like, y'all wouldn't believe. Man, I used to leave my plate on the table all the time. And start bragging about it.
My wife would have to clean up after me because I'm a man of the house, I'm gonna clean up. Does that show that I'm serious and I'm sorry? No, because why? I'm bragging about it. I'm bragging.
Man, I used to leave stuff all... My wife cleans up after me all the time. I may have changed my behavior, but I'm still finding pride in the mistakes that I used to make. And you find that nowadays, brothers and sisters.
Oh man, I used to live a life where I used to party, I used to do this, I used to do that. But now I found Allah alhamdulillah. Right? This is not sincerity and repentance.
If someone is sincere in repentance, then we are as ashamed to bring up those mistakes as we are the most embarrassing things in our life. We don't wanna talk about it. We don't wanna... It's as if Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) took it, said, go and run.
I'm gonna hide this, go and run. And then if we try to show off, we're uncovering that same mistake.
The third is that we promise never to go back to it. Right? So you make that sincere promise, never to go back to it. That I'm never ever gonna do this again. Right?
And the fourth is that if you have to, if it involves someone else, if it harms somebody else, then you have to apologize or make things right with that person.
Right? So if you made a mistake, if you committed a sin, that's one thing. But if that sin involves somebody else, then you have to go make sure. This includes backbiting, this includes slander, this includes cheating, this includes making someone feel terrible, hurting their feelings.
You can't just ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to forgive you. But on the Day of Judgment, that person will stand between us and between our goal of paradise and will say, you didn't ask me for forgiveness. We ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to protect us from a scenario like that.
Ameen.
The Story of Ka'b ibn Malik
So how is tawbah accepted? A lot of people they do this and they ask the question, they say, how do I know for certain that my tawbah is accepted? I'm gonna tell you two stories insha'Allah for the rest of the khutbah and then we're done with the khutbah. And these two stories are gonna give us the perfect case studies for tawbah.
The first is a man named Ka'b ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him). Ka'b ibn Malik was like the hottest rapper of the time in pre-Islamic Arabia, right? And when everyone was converting, he was so good at his poetry.
He was so fresh. Like his lyrics were so good that when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) met him, okay? And he was Muslim. When the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) met him, he went to Ka'b and before Ka'b ibn Malik was able to say, my name is Ka'b ibn Malik, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, hey, you're Ka'b ibn Malik.
And Ka'b said, yeah, I am. And he goes, man, I've heard a lot about your poetry. Ka'b ibn Malik said, that was the best day of my life.
The day that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) knew who I was before I had to introduce myself, he said, no day could top that in my life because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) knew who I was, right? Imagine meeting someone really famous that you admire and they already know who you are before you introduce yourself. What an honor for that person. What an honor for you that that person would know who you are.
So Ka'b ibn Malik, he loved the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). He admired the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). He would always try to copy the character of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).
There was an expedition that the Sahaba, the companions were going out a battle that they were preparing to go out on. And Ka'b ibn Malik is telling us this story. You'll see why it's very important.
Ka'b ibn Malik, I believe it was the Battle of Tabuk. Ka'b ibn Malik, he said that the year that this expedition was happening, he said everyone was preparing to go, on ready to go out for this battle. He said that year I had two female camels.
Everyone in this room was like, what does that even mean? I have no clue. Imagine if I said that year I had two red Ferraris. Everyone's like, oh, okay, I get you, right? A female camel in the time of the Islamic and pre-Islamic Arabs was money.
That was cash. To say I had two female camels was like I'm a billionaire. So Ka'b ibn Malik says, I had two female camels, man.
Two female camels. Instead of writing swag, we feel like two female camels, right? Wear shirts that say two female camels. No, don't do that.
So he's like, I had so much money. And then he said, the fruit, because he had gardens, he said the fruit that I had, the fruit was ripening perfectly. It was blooming perfectly.
It tasted so sweet and delicious. What's he saying? He's saying what? The dunya was distracting. He's saying, everyone was preparing to go and defend Islam, defend the ummah, defend the community, be with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).
And the dunya was distracting, man. That's what he was saying. What does it show us right away? Is that the companions were the best of the generations, but we can relate to them on so many levels.
How many times have you wanted to pray Fajr and your bed was just so warm? You're like, I didn't know I had a Tempur-Pedic mattress, right? And your bed's like, yeah, you do, enjoy it. And you're like, I gotta get for Fajr. Your pillow's like, no, I'm so warm and I'm so fluffy right now.
You don't even have to change position. The dunya was distracting. How many of you guys, it's time to pray Maghrib, and your mom just got the samosa fresh out of the oil, the hot oil.
I'm not trying to, you know, brother Hamza Abdullah is running a boot camp here. I want everyone to sign up insha'Allah, right? Or it's time to pray Isha' and the new movie's coming out. You're like, oh, forget it.
We're gonna pray Isha' at 3 in the morning instead. When no one wants to pray and everyone's tired and they're just going through the motions, we'll pray it then. We're not going to pray before the movie.
The dunya is distracting, dude. And so Ka'b ibn Malik, he's telling you, he's saying, yeah, I was distracted. And he said, so he said to himself, I saw everybody else preparing for the expedition.
And I said, you know what? I'll take my time. They're not going to leave for a while, right? I'll take my time. So he started packing his things slowly. Everyone else is getting ready, getting ready. He started packing his things slowly. And then what he does is he says, you know what? They're going to leave today.
I'll leave tomorrow. I'll catch up with them tomorrow, right? They can leave today. They all left.
He said, it's okay. I'm one person. They're going to take a lot of pit stops.
I can catch up with them. No problem. One day passes.
He says, nah, I'll go tomorrow. Two days pass. Nah, I'll go tomorrow.
Three days pass. Nah, I'll go tomorrow. Finally, four days pass.
And he says, you know what? I'm just going to stay here. I'm just going to stay here. So the companions, they go, they participate in the battle and they come back.
Ka'b ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him), he gets this news that they're coming back. And what did he say? He's narrating the story. He says, I immediately started to think of all the excuses I can come up with.
Ya Rasoolallah, I had to fold my socks. Ya Rasoolallah, I had to iron my thobe. Ya Rasoolallah, I felt sick.
I had a stomachache. Ya Rasoolallah, he's thinking of all these excuses he can come up with. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) comes back from the battle.
This is a very serious crime, by the way. To desert the community in an issue of self-preservation. The ummah, trying to help defend the ummah is a very serious crime.
You're deserting the army. It's very serious. Even today, if you look at people who join the army and desert, it's a very serious crime.
And so the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) comes back and there's about 70 or 80 people who also did this. But Ka'b ibn Malik said they were known to be weak in faith. Some of them even hypocrites.
And so the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he came back and before he went to his house, he stopped next door and he offered two raka'ah, Nafl prayer. And he sat down and he wants to greet everybody. So the first people who would come to him usually are the people who skip the battle.
So they went to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said, ya Rasulullah, I had this excuse. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, may Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) forgive you. And he let them go.
And he let all of these people go. Finally, the last person to come to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was Ka'b ibn Malik. And he came to the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and he said, ya Rasulullah, (peace be upon him).
He said, I've been thinking of excuses to tell you on why I didn't go. But in reality, there is nothing, there's no excuse I can come up with. I just didn't go.
And the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), he kind of gives him like a little like nod. And he says, go ahead, go. Ka'b ibn Malik said, for the next few days at prayer, I would verbally try to acknowledge the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) by saying salam to him directly.
And he said, his salam was so quiet back to me that I would have to look at his lips to see if he responded to me. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was what? He was disappointed. He was disappointed in Ka'b.
He said, Ka'b, you're better than that. So 10 days go by. The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), once people see that the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is not talking to him, what do they do? They also don't talk to him.
And then the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), 20 days go by, no one's talking to him. 30 days go by, no one's talking to him, right? Him and two other people who didn't go. And Ka'b ibn Malik at this point, he's getting really anxious.
Like, why isn't anyone talking to me? Finally, 40 days go by and he runs to his cousin, Qatada (may Allah be pleased with him), and he goes to his cousin, he says, Qatada, he says, Salaam alaikum. And Qatada doesn't answer. And he says, Qatada, Salaam alaikum.
And he's crying. And Qatada doesn't answer. He says, Qatada, Salaam alaikum.
He goes, Qatada, don't you know that I love Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) and His Messenger? Don't you know that I love them? And Qatada goes, Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) knows best. And his heart just sinks.
You know that guilt you feel when you make a mistake? You know that guilt that you and I feel when we make mistakes? Ka'b ibn Malik felt that times infinity.
What did I do? What have I done? Why did I do that? Why did I succumb to my nafs? Why did I give in to the dunya? It wasn't worth it. The two she-camels totally seemed worth it at the time. The fruit totally seemed worth it.
Now, after 40 days of being distant from my Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and my community, it is not worth it. That is the guilt that drives someone to tawbah.
Finally, 50 days passed and Ka'b ibn Malik said, I was praying Fajr.
And after Fajr, I was making dua to Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to forgive me. Imagine, every day he was making dua. Oh Allah, forgive me.
Oh Allah, forgive me. And he said, finally, I heard from the upper area of the masjid, I heard someone say, Ka'b ibn Malik, enjoy the glad tidings of forgiveness for you've been forgiven. And he began to cry and he fell into sajdah.
And people ran in and they greeted him and hugged him and said, Ka'b, you've been forgiven. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had said, you've been forgiven. And then finally, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) runs in and he grabbed Ka'b ibn Malik and he says, you've been forgiven.
And he tells him about this verse that Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) was talking to Ka'b ibn Malik. He said, Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) said:
"Then He turned to them so they could repent. Indeed, Allah is the Oft-Returning [to mercy], the Most Merciful."
And this is how we know. A lot of people ask me this question.
They say, brother Murphy, I've made tawbah, how do I know that I'm forgiven? How do I know that I am, Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) accepted my tawbah?
This verse tells us:
ثُمَّ تَابَ عَلَيْهِمْ
Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) is talking about himself. He says, then Allah turns toward them:
لِيَتُوبُوا
And then they repent. Brothers and sisters, the way that you and I know that we are forgiven, is if we are people who repent.
Because if you repent, that's not the first step of the equation. It's actually the second. The first step of the equation is that Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) allowed you to repent.
It's a beautiful religion that we are part of. It's a beautiful faith and relationship that we have with Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He). That if you want to know if you are forgiven of your sins, ask yourself one question.
Do I frequently repent, Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He)? Do I recognize my mistakes? Do I feel that guilt? And do I frequently repent to Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He)? We ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to forgive our sins. We ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to make us amongst those who repent. We ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to make us amongst those who establish tawbah as a habit in our lives.
أَسْتَغْفِرُ اللَّهَ لِي وَلَكُمْ وَلِسَائِرِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ وَالْمُسْلِمَاتِ فَاسْتَغْفِرُوهُ إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ
The Story of Sa'alaba
الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى رَسُولِهِ الْكَرِيمِ وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَمَن تَبِعَهُمْ بِإِحْسَانٍ إِلَى يَوْمِ الدِّينِ اللَّهُمَّ اجْعَلْنَا مِنْهُمْ آمِين
Repentance is forgiven. But there's one final narration I want to share with everybody on how repentance benefits us in this life. We can all agree that tawbah benefits us in the next life.
We know insha'Allah that Allah will forgive our sins insha'Allah and will accept us in the paradise because of that. But how does it benefit us in this life? There's a story of a young man. He was 16.
His name was Sa'alaba (may Allah be pleased with him). Sa'alaba, he used to be the errand runner, the courier for the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Whenever the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) had something, he wouldn't go UPS, FedEx, DHL.
He would go Sa'alaba, right? So he said Sa'alaba, he would give him all of his mail, his deliveries and Sa'alaba would deliver those things. One day Sa'alaba was walking in the neighborhood and he saw a
bath house and the bath houses back then didn't have doors like we have doors today. They had kind of blankets and this day was a windy day.
And so the door blew open and Sa'alaba happened to, out of curiosity, not out of evil intention, looked in and he saw a woman was bathing. And he became so guilt-stricken from this innocent mistake.
SubhanAllah, brothers and sisters, the companions used to make innocent mistakes and they would take it so seriously.
But we sometimes make intentional mistakes and we brush it off like it's no big deal. Look at the difference. If we want to talk about successful generations, look at the difference in how they viewed their mistakes.
So Sa'alaba, he became guilt-stricken, he cried, he said, how could I, someone who made such a big sin, be the person who works for the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)? And so he ran away to the mountains. And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) noticed that he wasn't there, he wasn't at prayer, he wasn't around. He says, where is Sa'alaba? Where is Sa'alaba? So the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), after a few days, 10, 20 days, he sent some people including Umar ibn Khattab and Salman ibn Farisi (may Allah be pleased with them).
He sent them, he said, go look for Sa'alaba. So they went to the mountains and they ran into these people, the shepherd. And they asked them, they said, have you seen this man who looks like this? He's young, he's 16.
They said, yes, there's a man who is up in the mountains. He cries all night long. He comes down every once in a while for some milk.
We give him milk and then he'll go back up and he'll cry some more. They said, do you know when he's gonna come down? He said, yes, he'll be down here soon. And so they waited and they saw a young person come down.
He was scrawny, he was tattered, he was skinny, he lost weight, but it was Sa'alaba. And they said, yes, Sa'alaba. And he became very embarrassed, said, get away from me, I don't want to see you guys.
You guys are too embarrassed. And they said, what happened? Why did you run away? The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) misses you. And he says, no, no, no, no, no, I can't go back and see the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). You don't know about the mistake that I've made.
This was all from an innocent mistake. You don't know about the sin that I've committed. They said, Sa'alaba, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said that we can't go back unless we bring you back.
Come with us. So they took Sa'alaba back and they brought him to his home and he was very ill, he was sick. So the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) went, he opened the door, he saw Sa'alaba, he smiled, and he put Sa'alaba's head on his lap.
And Sa'alaba began to cry. He said, Ya Rasulallah, he said, take this dirty head of a sinner off of your lap. And Sa'alaba said, yeah, and Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, yeah, Sa'alaba, what's wrong? And he told him what happened. Sa'alaba said, I did this. And the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, it's just an innocent mistake. Just ask Allah for forgiveness and you'll be forgiven. There's no reason to be so hard on yourself. And then Sa'alaba looked up at the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and said, Ya Rasulallah, I'm feeling this pain. I'm feeling this pain that feels like ants are crawling underneath my skin between my bones. He said, Ya Rasulallah, is this punishment? And the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) began to cry and he said, no, Sa'alaba, this is death. He said, you're going to die soon. And he rubbed his hand over the forehead of Sa'alaba until the Sa'alaba passed away. How does tawbah benefit us in this life, brothers and sisters? Did you ever think that Sa'alaba, after committing that innocent mistake, did you ever think that he would think that he would be in the lap of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) when he passed away? And how many of us, what would we give to be in that same situation when it's our time to go? But Sa'alaba's sincere repentance, his sincere guilt and repentance led him to a place where he passed away in the lap of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). And we know that people will be resurrected in the same status or the same state that they passed away. And when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he himself prepared Sa'alaba's body for janazah. And he himself buried Sa'alaba. When he was on his way to the janazah, he was tiptoeing through the crowd like this, but it was an empty valley. There were only a few people there because people hadn't come yet. And Umar ibn Khattab, he said, Ya Rasulallah, why are you tiptoeing? And he said, Ya Umar, can you not see the thousands of angels here for the janazah of Sa'alaba? This is the benefit of tawbah in this life, brothers and sisters. It's not all for the akhira. It's mainly focused on the next life. But tawbah will connect you and give you opportunities in this life that you never had. We need to make tawbah a habit in our lifestyle. We ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to give us tawbah as a habit. We ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to give us tawbah as sincere as Sa'alaba. And we ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to accept all of our tawbah. We ask Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) to accept all of our tawbah. May Allah make us of them, Ameen