Tawbat al-Inaba
Definition
Tawbat al-Inaba is the highest category of repentance — repentance motivated not by fear of punishment or hope for reward but by pure love of God and a longing to return to intimacy with Him. Al-Ghazali places it above repentance driven by fear (tawbat al-khawf) because the one who repents from love does not need an external threat to motivate change; the very distance from God is itself the unbearable consequence they are fleeing. This level of repentance belongs to the spiritual elite — those whose hearts have been so opened to divine love that any state other than closeness to God is felt as exile. It is the repentance of the prophets and the saints.
As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Ghazali and the scholars of his school.
Appears in
1 book in the library
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