Ahmadiyyat or The True Islam — Page 216
216 upheaval but such emotion would be produced only by some volcanic action shaking the very foundations of a man’s being, and such action could not be generated at will. Repentance cannot, therefore, encourage indul- gence in vice; it is a true means of effecting reforma- tion. It saves man from despair and encourages him to make efforts towards self-improvement. The idea that repentance encourages wrong-doing is due to the misapprehension that repentance means merely to ask forgiveness for one’s sins. This however, is not repentance ( Taubah or Istighf a r ). Repentance does not mean asking forgiveness for sins; but on the contrary, sins are forgiven as the result of repentance. The fifth means prescribed by Islam for moral reformation, appears at first sight to be inconsistent with the fourth, but in reality it is merely supplementary to it. This is the effort which Islam makes to uproot the evil influences of heredity. No doubt man is born with a pure nature, but he sometimes inherits from his parents or remoter ancestors certain inclinations towards vice. This is not a self-contradictory statement. Nature and inclination are two different things. Nature or con- science is always pure. Even the child of a robber or a murderer is born with a pure nature. But if the parents possess an evil mind, the child will be influenced by it, and if he subse- quently encounters evil situations, will be easily led away by evil thoughts just as the children of confirmed invalids are prone to fall an easy prey to diseases from which their parents suffer. Such inclinations and ten-