What does the statement ‘To repent only with the tongue is the repentance of liars’ mean?

Will you explain the statement "Repentance made only with the tongue without having regret in the heart is the repentance of liars"?

- If a person abandons a sin completely but if he does not feel any embarrassment, regret, sorrow, etc. and does not suffer a pang of conscience, what will his state be like? 
- Is such a person not regarded to have repented? There is a hadith about it. How can the opposite of it be said?
- If you say that even such a person is regarded to have repented, will you explain it?

Dear Brother / Sister,

First of all, we should state that Allah does not waste or lose anything. Therefore, He gives the thawab of every supplication and repentance, at least for the words uttered by the mouth. However, there are some conditions for a person to have repented really.  

Imam Ghazali quotes the statement “To repent only with the tongue is the repentance of liars” of some scholars and explains it as follows:  

“Repentance in which the heart does not take part and that is made only with the tongue is the deed of liars. A person’s saying “astaghfirullah” as a habit and heedlessly is a fake repentance. When a person sees a fire and says, “I take refuge in You from this fire” though he does not feel and sorrow in his heart, he is a liar; a person who asks for forgiveness from Allah though he does not regret in his heart is also a liar." (Ghazali, Ihya, 4/47)

An acceptable repentance has some elements: One of them is to abandon the sin that one commits. Another one is to regret due to the sin. Another one is to determine not to commit that sin again. Yet another one is to follow the way of obedience instead of disobedience. If one of those elements is missing, the repentance is regarded as missing too. Regret is the first thing to do. It is something that is done with the heart, not with the tongue.   

- According to a narration, the Prophet said,

“Tawbah nasuha (sincere repentance) means to regret due to a sin that one has committed.” (Kanzul-Ummal, h. no:10302)

Regret is a feeling that includes both shyness and fear. (Ghazali, Ihya,1/166)

The biggest elements of repentance are knowledge (to understand what one does against Allah means), regret and abandoning sins.

"Regret is one of the obligatory conditions of repentance.” (Ghazali, Ihya, 4/7)

Thus, a person who understands what the sin that he has committed means feels shy because of what he has done and fears by thinking about its penalty; when those two feelings overwhelm him, he regrets and “beats his breast”.

- Shyness, fear and regret are all related to the heart. Thus, it is not a real repentance when a person whose heart is in heedlessness “asks for forgiveness and repents with his tongue”.

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