Confess to Allah...Not to the "Sheikh"!

Many people, when they persist in sinning (mixing between young men and women, not adhering to the legal hijab, etc.), refuse to "confess" that they are wrong. Why? Because the word "confess" makes them imagine themselves sitting with their heads bowed before the "Sheikh" or the "committed one," asking for forgiveness! So, they start to feel disgusted and begin to remember the negatives of this "Sheikh," or she remembers the negatives of the "Sheikha" and their mistakes and sins, which are of another kind. - "I "confess" to him? Why? Is he better than me?! They are the ones who did this and that...." (Of course, the flood of "they" takes both the good and the bad in generalization). - "No, I will not confess." At this critical turning point, they start to justify their sin: - The "Sheikh" addresses him with a verse to remind him that what he is doing is a sin...so he denies the meaning of the verse and interprets it in a corrupt way and looks for "modern Sheikhs," "thinkers" who interpret it according to his whim! - He reads a hadith that makes him feel guilty...so he denies the hadith and watches videos of those who doubt the entire Sunnah! And in all of this, he is controlled by the repulsive image in his subconscious: the image of him sitting and confessing before the "Sheikh" who is despicable in his view or before the "Sheikha" who is despicable in her view...this disgust makes him do everything to avoid sitting in this humiliating session! Listen, young men/listen, young women: - I will not defend here the "Sheikhs" and the "Sheikhas," for some of them indeed have sins worse than the sin they are warning you about at the beginning, such as mixing and songs and... - I will not talk about the mistake of generalization and that you are violating (no soul shall bear the burden of another). - I will not talk about refusing to divide Muslims in the first place into "Sheikhs" and "ordinary people" or "religious men" and "worldly men." - Rather, my point now is not to tell you: leave your sins. - I am calling you away from all of this to focus on the most important thing: - You and you are not required to "confess" to any human in a humiliating session...our religion is not a religion of forgiveness certificates nor a religion of "confession" to "religious men" in the manner of the People of the Book. - But I ask you: confess to Allah...humble yourselves to Allah...submit to Allah...humiliate yourselves to Allah...Allah is your Lord...not to me, nor to a Sheikh, nor to a veiled woman, nor to others. - I ask you: if someone advises you and you do not like him or the way he advises or anything: be content with silence...do not justify, do not defend the forbidden... - Rather, I say to you: if the one who advises you is actually contradictory, has no sincerity, and yet speaks as if he is a noble king, and this angers you, say to him: I submit to my Lord...do not expect me to submit to you while you do this and that... - But I ask you: do not deprive yourselves of entering into the saying of Allah the Almighty: (And others have confessed their sins, mixing a good deed and another evil; perhaps Allah will accept their repentance. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful).