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Am I obligated to perform the Prayer of Repentance due to intrusive thoughts of mocking religion, lying about it, and ignoring it, which I sometimes invoke, even though I do not desire them and feel guilty, and knowing that these intrusive thoughts appeared after intrusive thoughts of death?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Whoever experiences obsessive whisperings (waswasah) should completely disregard them. The hatred of waswasah is a sign of sound faith, and the cure for waswasah is to completely ignore it. The prayer of repentance (Salat al-Tawbah) is prescribed, as there are authentic hadiths regarding it. Furthermore, a person experiencing excessive waswasah should frequently seek refuge from polytheism (shirk) and seek forgiveness for it by reciting the well-known supplication: "O Allah, we seek refuge in You from knowingly associating anything with You, and we seek Your forgiveness for what we do not know."

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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