Whose Repentence is Rejected?

Articles - Aqeedah

"Concerning these whose repentance will not be accepted, there were several opinions:

It was said that it is because of their hypocrisy, or because they repented from sins less grave than shirk but did not repent from shirk, or it was said that their repentance would never be accepted after death. But the majority, such as al-Hasan, Qataadah, ‘Ata’, al-Khorasaani and al-Suddi said: Their repentance will never be accepted when death comes to them. So this is like the verse in which Allah says (interpretation of the meaning): “And of no effect is the repentance of those who continue to do evil deeds until death faces one of them and he says: ‘Now I repent;’ nor of those who die while they are disbelievers” [al-Nisa’ 4:18].

And the same applies to the verse in which Allah says (interpretation of the meaning): “Verily, those who believe, then disbelieve, then believe (again), and (again) disbelieve, and go on increasing in disbelief; Allaah will not forgive them, nor guide them on the (right) way”

[al-Nisa’ 4:137].

Mujaahid and other mufassireen said: “and go on increasing in disbelief” means, they remain steadfast in that until they die.

I [Ibn Taymiyah] say: That is because the one who repents is giving up kufr, whereas the one who does not repent is persisting in it and adding kufr to kufr. The words “and go on increasing in disbelief” are like saying, they persisted in kufr and continued in kufr and remained in kufr. So they became disbelievers after becoming Muslim, then their kufr increased and did not grow less. The repentance of these people will not be accepted, referring to their repentance when they are dying, because the one who repents before death comes has repented soon enough and recanted his kufr, so it did not increase; rather it decreased, unlike the one who persisted in kufr until the time of death."

Shaykh Al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah

Majmoo‘ al-Fataawa (16/28-29