Psychological functions of repentance according to Islamic sources

One of major goals of psychological sciences and celestial religions is development and transformation of people. “Repentance” is the most important and useful word in the Holy Quran that refer to the necessity of restructuring and transformation of human. According to Quranic verses and sayings of religious figures, repentance has two major meanings: 1) “repentance” as basic approaching to God (come to belief). In this sense, it is opposed to words such as “Tavalli” and “Eraz” that correspond to basic avoidance from God. 2) “repentance” as approaching to God from mistake and specific sins. In this sense, it corresponds to such phrases such as “insisting on sin”. Based on semantic functions of repentance, we could consider at least four psychological functions for repentance: a) “making and improving the meaning of life”, b) “reducing psycho-spiritual struggles and conflicts”, c) “increased mental health”, and d) “increased divinity development”. We could place these functions into a hierarchical model, in which reduced psycho-spiritual struggles and conflicts are at low level, increased mental health and making and improving meaning are at the middle level, and increased divinity development is at the top.