Tawbah Is Difficult, Apparently (But Let’s Face It, So Are We)
People talk about tawbah like it’s supposed to be clean, smooth, instant and pretty much similar to uninstalling an app.
Tap, tap, delete, done.
But nope.
If we’re really honest, repentance is one of the messiest spiritual practices we’ve got.
Tawbah is more like trying to remove glitter from the carpet.
One moment you think you’ve cleared it…and then the sun hits at a weird angle and there it is again, sparkling like, Hey girl, miss me?
Most of us don’t actually struggle with making tawbah.
In fact, we’re great at the vow part.
Like saying ‘till Jannah’ on the wedding day, when everyone’s emotional and everything still feels possible before anything has really tested us yet.
Sticking to it is where things get interesting. The difficulty is in staying loyal to the choice of repenting.
This morning, my kid Rei accidentally left a tiny watercolor mosque on a paper card on the kitchen floor.
Just a small, random thing. But for a moment it made me pause.
That little illustration took me back to the time two years ago when I felt, unmistakably, that Allah had handed me a second chance to step back onto the straight path.
Rei had secretly discovered my stash of craft supplies—the box I thought I’d hidden brilliantly—the one meant for a Qur’anic tadabbur art journal I swore I’d start around that time.
Like so many noble things I promise myself every new year with bloated optimism (yet with zero follow-through), the art journal never materialized.
Still, I made sure I was at least committed to the one thing that mattered: stepping away as much as possible from whatever distances me from Allah and leaning toward what draws His pleasure as best as I could, no matter how messy that actually looks like in real life.
That was the beginning of my hijrah.
Linguistically, the Arabic triliteral root ه-ج-ر (ha–ja–ra) carries the meaning of leaving, abandoning, parting with or breaking away from something.
The language itself already tells the story of a deliberate separation and a decisive walk away from whatever harms us spiritually, mentally, physically.
This could mean creating distance between us and the habits that keep hollowing us out, or consciously shedding old skins, especially the destructive layers of ourselves that keep us from living the life Allah truly wants for us.
The life that matters not just here but for the Hereafter.
And in that space—that trembling gap between who we were and who we hope Allah will help us become—something shifts slowly, unevenly but definitely.
We begin to transform into someone who lives with a little more surrender (and hopefully, a little less self-sabotage).
Real hijrah takes brutal self-awareness, a willingness to sit in the discomfort of spiritual growing pains and a lot of guts. This is essentially an inner migration toward the One who never left us, even after all those years we spent running away from Him.
And tawbah is the first honest step in that hijrah.
Even etymologically, ‘tawb’ is a word of returning or circling back toward Allah while we’re still very much alive, with enough time to actually do something about it.
Tawbah is a homecoming after wandering too far into the dark and finally catching sight of the path again. So repentance becomes the gritty, lifelong work of returning to our Creator, our purpose, and yes, eventually to ourselves—step by step, day by day.
Now look, all of this sounds beautiful in theory.
One tawbah, one repentance, should do the trick. One clean break and we’re brand new.
But of course, it’s never that simple.
Tawbah is rarely a straight line.
At least that’s what it’s felt like for me over the past two years. Maybe I’m not alone. For some of us, returning might not really be a neat arc of progress.
We think we’ve finally made it back to Allah.
In our heads, we think: Alhamdulillah, yay, I’m baaaaaaack.
But it turns out we’re still orbiting the front porch with hesitance, circling the neighborhood and then drifting back into the busy streets of the neon-lit city of our old life the moment something loud enough calls our name.
We vow, “Never again.”
And we mean it. Tears everywhere. Warm snot running down our face. Staccato breathing. A whole theatrical showdown with our past.
And yet, here we are.
Human.
The mind doesn’t necessarily get the memo. But the nafs still has muscle memory that remembers the full archive of our past search history (yes, literally and figuratively). Meanwhile, the body remembers the rhythm of the old high, the fantasy, the thrill.
Old triggers hang around like clingy acquaintances texting us hey babe or draping an arm over our shoulder with the usual, how’s it goin’, buddy?
Because some things do cling. They stick to the edges of the mind like old perfume.
So at 11:47 p.m., when the bedroom is dark and quiet, a thought wanders. Wandering becomes remembering. Remembering becomes a feeling. And suddenly the brain drags us by the collar back into a scene we vowed never to revisit.
The wanderlust of the heart is an old gravity that pulls us back toward the funhouse we thought we ditched just to get back home to Allah.
We still get distracted by desire, tempted by familiar escapes and weighed down by longing we haven’t untangled yet.
That’s the test of tawbah.
Allah, our Creator, is the Creative Intelligence behind the brain He fashioned, so of course He knows exactly how it works with complexity and all (including the neurodivergent lot among us).
We’re not expected to wipe our mind clean but only to resist the urge before it becomes action.
Resisting is worship. Redirecting is worship. Closing the tab and logging out before the spiral begins is worship.
Technically, sincere tawbah gives us the strength to say no to acting on it, again and again, even when the darkness shows up like an old friend.
But what if we really mess up our tawbah when our nafs bulldozes the best of us?
I mean, how many times have we sworn, never again only to relapse?
Sometimes we forget.
The dunya drags us by the ankle and and the residue of our past— what we’ve repented from, what we’ve tried to shed— continues to live in the psyche, the body, the attachments.
In those moments, these things surface in strange places. Places that even look pious and seem like they’d please Allah but in reality only soothe the ego.
The heart can’t really ‘stay home’ perfectly while still walking around in dunya. Just like our iman, it yearns even as it falters, rises even as it falls.
In reality, tawbah isn’t usually this rapid transformation where we nail it on the first try and float away purified. That pressure is wild. Unrealistic, even, to graduate from sin overnight. (But if you do, alhamdulillah, you’ve just completed the hardest spiritual assignment EVER.)
Some tawbah is easy at the start and hard in the maintenance while some can be brutal at the start but gentle after.
Either way, the One who accepts it knows the difference and He sees the unseen fight that can make us slip every now and then.
Perhaps for some of us, slip-ups are part of the soul’s curriculum. And nowhere is this more evident than when we try to quit something cold turkey.
We love going “I’m done. Forever. Starting now.”
Out with the old, in with the new, baby.
Now that’s some serious determination for sure.
But going from sinful comfort to strict abstinence can be a full-on culture shock to our system. Our soul is trying to migrate to a better land, but our nafs might still be sulking in the corner refusing to pack its bags.
So we slip. It happens.
What actually matters is what we do right after the slip.
Do we pretend nothing happened? Do we do it again?
Or worse, do we spiral into another round of I’m trash, so why bother? thinking and wander back into that trickster of an old funhouse instead of staying rooted in our home with Allah?
And if we do step back in, we inevitably find ourselves in that one spot—the attic—that’s deceptively easy to settle into.
Sure, the attic is ‘lofty’ in the architectural sense because it literally sits above all the other rooms. Yet its physical elevation brings it nowhere near the divine transcendence of Allah’s light.
The attic is a space that presses in on us like unspoken things do.
Imagine all the regrets stacked in the corner like unopened boxes, old mistakes settling there the way cold settles into concrete and stale air tinged with the frosty bite of shame.
This shame is heavier than ordinary embarrassment, oh, and colder too. It’s the shame before Allah and before ourselves that creeps in when we realize we haven’t truly returned to Him at all.
We tell ourselves we’ll stay just for a moment but that shame becomes a room we lock ourselves into.
Some might argue it’s spiritually dangerous to repeat the same mistakes and to stumble even after tawbah. We’re told we were never sincere enough to begin with and that tawbah loses its meaning if we relapse as the heart grows numb to remorse.
Eventually, we may even start measuring our spiritual worth by how many times we’ve failed or by how unconsciously creative we’ve become at inventing new ways to slip.
The shame convinces us to sit still and give up. And so the more we sit, the harder it is to lift our feet out of the attic and head back toward the doorway of tawbah and try again. The path back to Him starts to feel like it has evaporated.
“Allah doesn’t want you back” is what we hear in our head when we mess up the same way again.
And even when we manage to climb down from the attic, the funhouse keeps talking.
Every mirror and warped hallway throws back the same poison:
“You’ve failed too many times. Even God’s tired of your BS.”
That shame gaslights us into thinking that we can never repent again, as if each of our relapses is akin to a permanent tattoo but on the soul.
And you know, the regrettable kind— like an ex’s name, a dainty speck of a butterfly from a ‘rebirth era’ or a messed-up foreign-language word we don’t speak, can’t read and trusted a stranger on the internet to translate. (I digress, but while Islam discourages inking ourselves with things tied to the dunya, that doesn’t mean anyone with tats is shut out from Allah’s mercy after tawbah).
Anyway.
Given everything we’ve repeated, it’s frighteningly easy to believe we’re just…done. The door to Allah is closed forever.
Now this is the despair that the shayṭān in us wants to trap us into believing that our broken vows of tawbah have made us unworthy of returning.
But just so we’re clear, those thoughts are lies. Convincing ones, sure. But still, lies. Smoke-and-mirrors tricks from the same funhouse that’s been recycling its material for years.
Because if our faith can be wiped out, so can our hope. And hope is such a powerful thing.
When I noticed the small illustrated mosque lying on the floor, I wasn’t sure whether to read into it or roll my eyes at myself for wanting to.
But I couldn’t help but wonder— was it a sign?
Was it a reminder that Allah is still there waiting for me to try again, even when I’m inconsistent after vowing to change and then tripping over my own feet halfway through?
Because somewhere beneath the muscle memory and the excuses, each of us has a fitrah that already knows. The bone-deep, pre-verbal knowing that Allah is the only Home we have. The one we always go back to.
If we’re willing to be painfully honest with ourselves, we’ve always known the way back, even during the seasons when we feel most lost in the carnival.
And we have the free will to make that choice to head Home, which is the only address that never changes.
Think of a mother waiting for her child to come home after a long absence. She’s been worried sick, scanning the road outside the window and just waiting to forgive her grown-up baby. There’s a softness that settles into her face when the door finally opens, a relief so deep it almost hurts.
Now take that image and stretch it beyond its limits.
Allah’s mercy toward His servants makes even that look small by comparison. His love for us is far greater than even that soft place mothers somehow become— you know, that familiar, arms-open, Come here, it’s okay kind of safety when you’re too tired to explain yourself.
Allah’s care doesn’t flicker when we falter. He doesn’t stand there with crossed arms saying, Oh My Me! Really? Again?
Neither does He decide, one day, to lock the door just because we used up our chances or ever grow tired of opening it again.
When He finally lets us in again, He doesn't bring up the blacklist of our failures in a lecture during dinner.
The Qur’an says it plainly to those of us who have gone too far, strayed too long and overcomplicated our own lives by messing up too much:
قُلْ يَـٰعِبَادِىَ ٱلَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا۟ عَلَىٰٓ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا۟ مِن رَّحْمَةِ ٱللَّهِ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ ٱلذُّنُوبَ جَمِيعًا ۚ إِنَّهُۥ هُوَ ٱلْغَفُورُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ
Say, ‘O My servants who have transgressed against their own souls! Do not despair of Allah’s mercy. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. He is the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful.’
Surah Az-Zumar, 39:53
This ayah hints at how, after we mess up, we tend to exile ourselves—which is really what sin looks like in daily life.
We disown ourselves. We run. We hide. We make poor choices, take wrong turns (sometimes very deliberately just to get a kick), then even worse ones.
Then we act shocked when we’re lost in the funhouse again, spiraling into unnecessary suffering, until we finally give up and go, Fine. This is where I live now, I guess.
And still, Allah never looks at us and says, You’re a failure.
The Home stays put. The gates don’t close.
So when someone finally turns back—after months, after years, after countless Okay, okay, I’ll get serious tomorrow promises— that return is met with a joy we can’t measure. Now imagine that joy wrapped inside a mercy we’ll never fully comprehend.
And when joy is held by a mercy with no ceiling, something wildly staggering comes into view: this is how our Rabb receives the servant who finally turns back, like they were expected all along.
There’s no such thing as “too late” to repent, no matter how many times we’ve needed to start over. Even after false starts, repeated failures, embarrassing relapses or serious wrongdoing, Allah doesn’t disown us or abandon us.
Contrary to how we often imagine Him, Allah prefers forgiveness over punishment. Such is His way with us.
He gives second chances, then third and then gazillions more that we’d probably lost count of, generously, all the way until our final breath.
We can ask again and again if we’re still allowed inside.
And the answer is always the same.
The door remains open, lit with so much love.
And when we finally step out of the funhouse—dizzy, embarrassed, pockets full of old tokens—and step back into the Home that’s Allah, however awkwardly, however late, we’re welcomed anyway.
So what do we do right after the slip-up?
Maybe we pause— even two minutes later— and say:
Astagfirullah. My Rabb, I messed up. I’m not proud of this. Please forgive me. Help me get back up.
That’s it. That’s the whole secret.
We turn back. Again. And again. And again. As many times as it takes.
Now here’s the part that’s hard to wrap our very human heads around:
Allah isn’t petty like we are.
We’re the ones who get irritated after the third apology.
We’re the ones who say “I’m done” when someone repeats the same mistake for the fifth time.
Remember that loved one we begged to stop doing the exact same thing?
Or the flaky friend who disappears for the 27th time, then reappears with a breezy sorry, life’s been craaazzzzyyyy like nothing happened?
Eventually, we distance ourselves from these people, cut our losses and sometimes terminate the relationships.
But that’s what humans do from time to time—we reject others.
Sometimes we even feel virtuous about it, calling it ‘healing’ for the sake of our ‘self-worth’ (though honestly, sometimes it’s probably just our pride talking after having learned some pop psychology on socials). Even if we do end up forgiving, our forgiveness may come with limits, conditions and an impressive, elephant-like, long-term memory.
Allah doesn’t work the same.
He forgives as long as our hearts still carry humility and we’re willing to turn back and say, My Rabb, I slipped. Astaghfirullah wa’atubu ilaik. Please pull me closer.
When in doubt, make istighfar—again, with these words:
رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِيْ وَارْحَمْنِيْ وَتُبْ عَلَيَّ إِنَّكَ أَنْتَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيْم
Rabbi ighfir lī, warḥamnī, wa tub ‘alayya, innaka anta at-Tawwābur Raḥīm.
My Rabb, forgive me, have mercy on me, and accept my repentance. Indeed, You are the One who accepts repentance, the Most Merciful.
Messing up after tawbah doesn’t erase the sincerity of the return.
Sincerity and weakness can absolutely exist in the same body. It just means we’re still learning how to crawl out of an old pattern that once felt like home, even though it was only a funhouse.
Direction matters more in tawbah than the perfection to get it right.
In fact, we were never asked to be perfect but were only encouraged to strive toward His way.
As long as the heart keeps facing Him, we’re still n the road, even if we trip every five steps with scraped, bloody knees. The act of trying again to walk back—clumsy, slow, bumbling—is proof that we remember where Home is.
Each moment of awareness, each conscious turn toward our Creator, counts as a return. Even partial ones, hesitant ones and the kind where we just stand there quietly, unsure what to say.
Maybe that’s the point in the end—not arriving spotless, but choosing, again and again, to turn, to step forward, to notice, and to return—aware, humbled and still willing to try again.
And when we return, we’ve got to do something about ourselves by putting all the work: correcting, adjusting, cutting back, quitting what needs quitting, changing what needs changing and even killing off a version of ourselves we’ve clung to.
For we’re not here just to be sorry before Allah.
We’re here to be better for Him, once and for all.
This essay is inspired by a few chapters from the following books:
40 Hari Hijrah Jurnal by Iddin Ramli
Perasaan Bukan Tuhan by Pahrol M. Juoi
