Islamic Studies ER

A sin is considered as any disobedience to Allah, our scholars divide sins into two groups: major sins and
minor sins. They say any sin for which Allah has clearly promised the fire of hell as a punishment in
Quran is a major sin. Thus, any sin that would not lead us to hell but may have other ill consequences is
a minor sin. However, it is agreed, that committing a minor sin repeatedly becomes a major sin.
Therefore, we should stay away from committing sins as much as possible and if one does, they should
repent immediately, asking Allah to forgive them.

Sinning has many negative impacts on your soul, heart, and body. When we become accustomed to
sinning our hearts become hard and we become too proud to ask Allah for forgiveness, and soon we will
find that even when we repent, we are not sincere, and it is done only half-heartedly. If we do not
repent straight away, we will continue to commit sins until they become very easy and seem
insignificant in our heart and this is a sign of destruction. Every time a sin becomes insignificant in the
sight of the servant it becomes great in the sight of Allah. Our nafs and shaytan is constantly and
relentlessly encouraging us to sin distancing our connection with Allah by trying to delay our istgfar and
tawbah. It causes us to forget to ask Allah for forgiveness and pass off the sins we commit as minor.
Hence, we continue with our lives not realizing how we have harmed our soul.

To prevent false pride and arrogance engulfing our heart we must keep our connection with Allah
strong. This can be done by performing Mahasabha (self-accounting) every night. We must take account
and revise what we did in the day and if we realise, we have committed any sin forgiveness should be
asked promptly. Tawbah starts from learning the reality of our sins and identifying our weaknesses and
strengthening by rekindling our relationship with Allah. Allah takes pride in being the merciful and
forgiving and assures us if we commit as sin and repent, we will be forgiven with the condition that we
must be sincere and say words of istagfar with the intention that we will not repeat the sin. As reported
by Anas ibn Malik, “Allah is more joyful with the repentance of his servant than one of you who has lost
his camel on a journey in an empty desert while it carries his food and drink”

There are multiple precautions we can take to stay away from sinning, for one we must recognize that
Allah is our master, and we are His slaves this is a sign of humility and makes us pure and sincere. We
must acquire taqwa, by being aware or Allah and his constant presence, and remember Shaytan’s tricks.
We can pray to Allah to keep us on the right path, help us overcome the temptation to sin and ask Allah
for protection against Shaytaans influence. Most of all, we must always remember to do Dhikr at any
time of the day to prevent Al-Ghaflah that is the state of unawareness of Allah. The avenues of Dhikr are
diverse, we can recite the Quran, pray, send peace upon the Messenger, dua, reflect, obtain divine
mindfulness, give sadaqah, seek forgiveness and many more.

To wrap it up it is vital that we learn how to stay away from sins and deflect those encouraging us to sin,
by maintaining our distance and connection with allah. If one is to sin it is important to ask forgiveness
immediately with a clear intention to prevent doing it again.