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Avoiding Personal Sins: Why & How?

33: AVOIDING PERSONAL SINS: WHY AND HOW?

Introduction: Performing personal good deeds (Do’s) is central to your religious life as a Muslim.  However, your effort at abstaining from personal sins (Don’ts) in favor of a clean life is no less important either. God urges you to “avoid all sins-open or secret” and promises you all “good news” in both the lives if you are able to “guard against evil (sins)” (6:120; 10:64/63). In fact, doing good deeds (like the Five Pillars) and avoiding bad ones (e.g. adultery) are like two sides of a coin in importance to overall religious performance of a Muslim.
 
(A) Why You Should Avoid Personal Sins:

1. Relative Importance: Good vs. Bad Deeds: The equality of importance for both types (Do’s and Don’ts) is not always reflected in the behavior of the typical Muslims as they tend to lean more toward doing good deeds than keeping from bad ones. For example, you often show enormous zeal in performing rituals like prayer, fasting, animal sacrifices etc. and that is quite good. But what is not good is that you lack matching interest in keeping clean from major sins like illegal earning, abuse of human rights, adultery etc. Metaphorically speaking, in an imaginary container of your good deeds, sins will be like a leakage for draining them out.

    In fact, abstention from grave sins is no less significant than performance of good deeds. There is warning that “It will be best for you if you desist (from wrong). Souls deliver themselves to ruin by their own (sinful) acts. It was not God Who (oppressed) them; they themselves did that to their own souls” (8:19; 6:70; 29:40). In this backdrop the Prophet assessed the fighting the ‘nafs’ (the inner self that instigates to sins) as an ideal form of ‘jihad’ (resistance).  This reinforces the Quranic advice “not to follow the lusts (of your hearts)” with ties to sins (4:135). The value of purity from sins may be illustrated by a simple comparison.  When you do an optional good deed, you gain an extra reward and when you refrain from a sin, you will be relieved from a painful penalty. Arguably, no one would probably like to accept a penalty (like whipping) for gaining a reward (such as sweetmeat). It is therefore not worthwhile to show negligence in keeping a distance from sins.

2. Spiritual Consequences of Sin:  By all accounts, sin is the worst of all things in your life.  It is the root cause of all evils and terrible things that may ever come your way. It degrades the quality of your soul and dims the brightness of your faith. Every sin lands a black spot on otherwise innocent conscience which is labeled as “the stain of (evil) deeds on their hearts” (83:14).  This robs you of your natural tendency to do virtuous things and instead fills you with an inward incitement to vices.  Thus sin becomes the cause of further sins as “sickness in hearts increases its impurity in addition to own impurity” (9:125). As a result, massive accumulation of sins will finally lead to total destruction with intolerable sufferings.

3. Painful Punishment Mainly for Sins: Admittedly, there is a very close and inseparable linkage between sin and punishment as reflected in the verse, “God punished them for their sins” (8:52).  Whatever misfortune comes to you is because “of things (sins) your hands have earned” even after many of them are forgiven (42:30). Punishment for sins comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. God also measures the depth of faith by means of tests through misfortunes, but such faith testing reality appears to be secondary to ‘sin based suffering’ strategy. Because the faith automatically gets tested as a by-product in course of misfortunes inflicted for sins.  Only in exceptional cases (such as for righteous prophets) misfortune is designed for testing of faith as the sole purpose.  

Suffering Follows Crude Pleasure: Usually some sins (such as sexuality, backbiting etc.) may give you a crude sense of pleasure during their commission. But soon afterward, you will start feeling the pains of mind (bites of conscience, fear of police and public criticism etc.) before you are arrested for physical punishment here on earth by your ruler and finally in the Afterlife under God’s care. This situation compares to the example of crude pleasure that you may get during your itching for eczema (a type of skin disease) which then leads to burning. 

(4) Punishment Inevitable If Not Forgiven: In fact, each and every sin that you commit, if not forgiven by God, will end up in some form of “due recompense” or punishment (6:120). This punishment will certainly come at an “appointed time”, “all on a sudden beyond their perception” and when it comes, “none can avert it” (29:53; 52:8). There are unlimited varieties of punishment having dual sources: one directly from God “Himself” (natural calamities) and the other by human “hands” like war, oppression etc. (9: 52). Such punishment may inflict indescribable pains on your body and mind; in extreme cases “changing your face and fame beyond recognition” (4:47).  Then you will be crying “unto God (in all postures): lying down on (your) side, or sitting or standing” alongside prayers (10:12). These are terrible experiences that only the victims go through personally which the nearby sympathizers (family and friends) cannot share in the least.
Punishment as a Variable: Punishment is a variable factor depending on the discretion of God. Accordingly, multiple sins may end up with a single big punishment or a single grave sin may be responsible for multiple punishments, which we are not in a position to know. Sometimes, the punishment follows a pattern of matching with its causal agent. For example, a rapist may have sexually transmitted diseases or a habitual drunk can have a throat cancer and so on. This, however, may not always be the case nor is it anything of importance in God’s policy of punishment. Depending on the nature and severity of sin, the punishment may be light or heavy, to be decided by God.

(5) Confusing Time Gap between Sin & Penalty: Sin results in punishment but seldom instantly.  Usually there is gap between the timing of sin and that of punishment that it causes. Usually, “the wicked ones are not (immediately) called into account” for their sins as they are given “respite for an appointed term” (28:78; 14:10). A person, for example, beating an innocent orphan may suffer punishment through yearlong poverty or month-long pneumonia, not immediately but say 2 years later. The exact duration of aforesaid time gap (how long after sin comes the punishment) and the linkage between the two (which sin causes what penalty) are solely decided by and exclusively known to God. However, there are multiple significances (described below) behind the divine policy of inserting a wedge between the timing of sin and that of punishment.

Significances of Time Gap:
(i) Time for Repentance: Merciful God, instead of destroying through instant punishment, favors the sinners with some time to “turn to your Lord (in repentance)” before “the penalty comes on you” (39:54). If the sinners are wise enough, they can translate this break time into their benefits by refraining and repenting. If, otherwise, you persist in wrongdoing, the time gap only brings you more harm by reinforcing your sinning.  
(ii) Testing of Faith: The time gap reality works well as a strategy for testing your faith. If all the sins were to face outright punishment (ex: paralysis of your right leg soon after using it for kicking an orphan), then everyone watching this miracle would tend to become faithful in God, without undergoing any test of faith. God, therefore, thinks better of testing your faith by introducing an element of invisibility through the time gap.
(iii) Punishment at Pre-decided Hour: The time gap reality is also explainable by the declared policy of God to punish the sinners only at the “appointed time” (29:53) but with decisive firmness.  When the “time (of divine punishment) is reached” no power on earth can “delay that even an hour, nor can they expedite that (an hour)” (7:34). When this appointed time arrives it is also too late for your “professing the Faith” and asking for forgiveness (40:85).
(iv) Confusion of Sin as the Cause of Penalty: As there is a time lag between a sin and its penalty and there is an apparent cause of punishment (e.g. car accident being the cause of physical injury), people blame such apparent reason (accident due to drunk driving etc.) for their misfortune (injury in this case). In another example, virus is the immediate cause of COVID pandemic claiming numerous human lives in 2020 but the background cause is their sins that prompted God to send the punitive viruses as His agents.                    

  In this process, the sinners fail to discover their sinful past as the real cause of their painful present. Without any sense of linkage between the two, they keep on adding up their sins on the one hand while on the other, terrible news keep coming in waves, that make their life miserable and intolerable; but there is no attempt to rein in sins to keep punishments away.  If they could identify sins as the root cause of their sufferings, they probably would have done everything possible to avoid or minimize sin.  On top of this earthy penalty for sinning lies in waiting the next phase of punishment in the life after death which is far more “grievous” by any standard (5:36).

(B) How to Avoid Sin Related Punishment: Given the fact that sins (if not forgiven) must result in punishment after a time gap, you should look for ways out of it. You can do that by redoubling efforts to avoid future sins and seek forgiveness for past ones.

1. Level Best Efforts against Personal Sins: The foregoing analysis points to the urgency for disengagement from sins, the root cause of all sufferings.  This need is often played down by the misguided argument that sinning is human nature and you will commit sins so that God can keep alive His role as the Forgiver. Be reminded that God is not committed to pardon willful sin but is likely to be soft with the sin that takes place despite your intention against that.

(i) Minimizing Sins:  You should try your level best to keep your sins (both major and minor) down at the lowest possible minimum.  Also, you should avoid border-line or doubtful sins in order to be on the safe side. For example, if you see cryptocurrency investment as similar to gambling in many ways, then better you avoid that as a caution.

(ii) Sacrifice against Sins:  Most importantly, you should be willing to make big sacrifices for protection from sins particularly by overpowering Satanic instigation. One encouraging example is provided by Prophet Yusuf (Joseph) who said “The prison is preferable to me” referring to his imprisonment for his rejection of sexual advances from Egyptian ruler’s wife Zulaikha (12:33). In this manner, those who take extra precaution and every possible actions to escape a sin are praised as God fearing ‘muttaqui’ who will be rewarded with “fulfillment of (all) desires” (78:31). As a metaphoric definition from the Prophet, ‘muttaqui’ people navigate the way of life full of thorns (sins) with abundant caution to avoid pricking. 

(2) Guard against Intention for Sinning: If you slide into a sin without or against your intention, you may find God as “Oft-Forgiving and most Merciful” (16:115).

(i) Sin without Intention: One possible case of soft treatment for sins is when you do it “out of ignorance and repent soon afterwards” (4:17). For examples, you are likely to gain pardon if you come to know about the illegal contents of a food after you swallow it down or you miss your morning prayer as you could not get up before sunrise despite sincere intention to do so. During the time of the Prophet, God “pardoned the past (sins)” of his companions which they gave up after “receiving directions from God” (2:275).

(ii) Sin against Intention: Another likely candidate for divine pardon is the sin “forced by necessity (or in a situation beyond your control) without willful disobedience nor transgressing due limits” (16:115). Under this concession, you are likely to gain amnesty if you take illegal food under pressure from food shortage (as during famine or war) and only to the extent necessary to survive.

It also follows from the above that if you commit a sin in clear conscience with full knowledge about its sinful status without making minimum effort to avoid it, then your sin ordinarily may not qualify for divine pardon. Instead, your punishment for sins is likely to be harsher than usual. Indicative of this is God’s warning for “double penalty” for sins committed by the knowledgeable wives of the Prophet (33:30).

(3) Actions Required After Sinning: (i) Repentance: Once you are involved in a sin intended or unintended, you are required to repent in a rightful manner.  You should really feel “repentance” or regret at heart and shame in mind for any ugly sins committed by you (4:146). The Quran wants you to make such repentance “soon” (4:17) after doing a sin in order to avoid its punishment.  While repenting, you also should have a sense of “hope” for forgiveness (66:8).

(ii) Apology: Your repentful inner feelings should also match with outward formal expressions, such as asking for “apology for their sins” by uttering words of ‘astagfir’ (3:135), shedding emotional tears of repentance out of fear for penalty and so on. It is quite advisable that apology for a secret sin should be administered privately in order to avoid any negative effects from its publicity.  Similarly, open sins deserve public apology intended to impress others that a sin is something to be hated and rejected.

(iii) Amendment of Conduct: Repentance will be meaningless for “those who continue to do evils” (4:18). You therefore need to make strong commitment to “amend conduct” with full determination that you will not repeat similar sins in the future (4:146). Of course, there is no total guarantee against such repetition in the face of possible instigation from the Satan. So what counts as important in this regard is the seriousness with which you try to battle the Satan to keep off sins. Alternatively, if you easily “go back (to your sins)” without making critical minimum effort to avoid it, then the chance to gain pardon will be very slim and God’s penalty may “return” (17:8).

(4) Complementary Measures: Prayer for apology should go hand in hand with some complementary conditions such as below:

(i) Begging pardon (repeatedly, if necessary) from the victims of your sinful behavior.
(ii) Paying back money that you illegally obtained from others such as through extortion or bribery.  
(iii) Making up mandatory prayers or fasting if missed previously.
(iv) Compensating the inheritors for murdering a person and so on.
(5)  Avoid Sin Inspirational Actions: It is not enough that you protect yourself from sins. You also ought to make sure that you “don’t anyway help one another in sin” (5:2). If you “recommend and help a sinful cause” of others, you will share in its penalizing burden (4:85). This is complementary to the ruling that if you “recommend and help a good cause” you become a rewarding partner therein (4:85). If you individually commit a sin, you will be punished proportionate to “the sin that (you) earned” (24:11). But if you yourself “took on the lead among (people)” in misguiding them to a sin, then you will also be responsible for their collective sins resulting in “grievous penalty” (24:11).
In order to protect others from sins, you should do the following among others:
(i) Your sins should not be inspirational such as through exposure of your private sex.
(ii) Do not defend your sin nor declare your sinful action as legal.
(iii) Do not copy sins of others nor “compete with other’s sins” (5:62).
(iv) Do not encourage others’ bad deeds like “miserliness” (47:38) such as through recommendation, praise, support or reward etc.
(v) Likewise, do not discourage good deeds of others such as “feeding of the poor” (107:3) or “ridiculing” those who “give freely to charity” (9:79).  
(vi) Do not sit down and silently tolerate sinful actions e.g. Quranic criticism, nude dance, gay parade. Instead, “turn away from them” if you cannot resist that anyway (28:55).

Conclusion: The above highlights about why and how you can avoid sins. Accordingly, if you can win over sins, you can be safe from sin related punishment and misery.