Why do we fall into sin

By Luzita Ball

If you have experienced and observed various countries it will be clear to you that many of the major and minor sins are rife now especially in America Australia and Europe causing a very high crime rate and many broken families. Also to a lesser extent this is starting to happen in some Muslim communities in which learning and teaching about Islam is not a high priority in their lives. In addition it is becoming abundantly clear that organisations claiming to act in the name of Islam such as Boko Haram Al-Shabab Al Qaeda Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) and others with similar tactics are all flagrantly and blatantly disobeying Allah (God) in almost every way. They seem to have little knowledge or care about Islamic morality. There is no way that these groups can claim to represent Islam. Many governments also seem to flout Islamic standards of morality and justice especially when dealing with their own populations or building empires.

Muslims need to be fully aware that there are many people trying to stir up suspicion blame anger despair radicalisation and injustice between us and by us against others so that they can morally justify to their public through the media that these terrible extremists must be stopped by all means. Also many are trying to undermine the faith of Muslims and to get them to abandon their beliefs and way of life or to change them to a different religion. Teaching each other in depth about the beliefs of Islam and the Major and Minor sins seems to me to be a good way to prevent Muslims from succumbing to these pressures and could contribute towards preventing extremist violence and further bloodshed and destruction of Muslim countries in particular.

P Lack of knowledge about sins

Nowadays many people in the West are finding it hard to believe in ‘sins’ good and evil angels and Satans Paradise and Hellfire. In the absence of any religion in some people’s upbringing decisions are based upon whether something seems or feels good or bad for them influenced by the current commonly held views of what is immoral or indecent or upon their parents’ advice as they were bringing them up.

Sometimes we do something wrong out of ignorance despite having good intention which may be due to our parents and others not teaching us about what is right and wrong. This type of sin is partly our fault that we should have tried to use our God-given faculties including our conscience and our opportunities to try to find out the right way to live. Parents according to Islamwill be accountable to God for sins committed by their children before adolescence.

P Lack of knowledge about accountability

Christianity teaches its followers to love God love Jesus obey the Ten Commandments from Moses and to love your neighbour as yourself. However it also tells them that by believing that Jesus died on the cross as payment for their sins then they have already been redeemed and forgiven and will have eternal life in Paradise and some believe that Hellfire does not exist only purgatory. These beliefs do not leave people with a clear incentive to strictly stick to the morals that Jesus (peace be upon him) lived by.

In Islam it is well known from the Quran and the Sunnah that beliefs alone cannot save us and that it is through the grace and mercy of God that He forgives us and purifies us enough to enter Paradise. We will however be mercifully and justly judged but only upon our own intentions words and deeds in the life that we lived and we are not accountable for the sins of anyone else except the children that we are bringing up. Before the Day of Judgement Muslims are told to have faith that God will have forgiven everything that we sincerely repented from and asked forgiveness for or were justly punished for during our lives.

P Lack of certainty that something is sinful or bad for us or that we will be held to account

For a Muslim at the moment of actually knowingly going against God’s commands we are actually in a state of either not fully believing that we are sinning or we think that God is not fully aware of what we are doing or we have the idea that He will forgive us automatically. Often we are not believing with certainty that we are accountable to God or that we will receive any negative consequence for doing a sin- perhaps doubting that God has power over or that He controls everything in our lives.

P Not understanding all the consequences of sins and all the benefits of not sinning

Sometimes we cannot fully understand why or how much a minor sin is bad for us and so sometimes this lack of conviction that Islam is the correct guidance perhaps can lead us to be tempted to be too relaxed and fall into at least the minor sins. We may also lack understanding of the true benefits to ourselves and others if we would stay away from the sin.

P Not listening to our conscience but instead other voices

Sinning is made possible by not listening to the voice of our conscience or intuition or God’s commands. Often we are denying the truth that we know and instead prefer to listen to and obey something or someone else that is fallible and limited in knowledge and wisdom including our own desires. Many are pushed towards a sin by peer pressure by fearing the loss of something or someone. Sometimes it is just that we have strong desires that we are not in the habit of restraining possibly due to being spoiled by people who never said ‘no’ to us. Conversely we may act out of a feeling of angry resentment and rebelliousness against the oppressive and domineering behaviour of someone towards usin a bid for freedom or out of an act of arrogance that we know better than our family Islam or God.

P Considering sins to be insignificant or actually good

In most cases the wrong action seems at the time to somehow to be justified or belittled in our minds or even made to seem cool and good. It is usually only afterwards that we start to realise or acknowledge that perhaps our ideas and those of our friends were wrong as we start to experience the negative consequences!

P Getting distracted or led by our emotions

Some sins are merely doing a normally quite good thing at the wrong time or in the wrong place or to the wrong extent such that we forget more important duties and responsibilities which means we have been distracted or have got wrong or imbalanced priorities.

P Being labelled as bad

Some people while still young get called ‘naughty’ and even worse things by their parents and others until these negative descriptions become part of their identity and they feel they have not got the ability to change. Sometimes they may think that they already have such a bad reputation that nothing they do can change this. So they just decide they will carry on with their wrong behaviour feeling even that the alternative good path is too difficult for them. These people have a lack of hope in God and His forgiveness.

P Being complacent and deluded that you are so good and special that you cannot sin are automatically forgiven or do not need to follow certain rules

Conversely some people think that they are already so good and spiritual innately guided automatically forgiven or pure that they don’t need to worry about certain rules and so they fall into sins due to their complacency and lack of carefulness and fear of God.

P Not knowing God or the blessings of closeness to God

If we do not have a clear idea of who God is and what He is like how can we know him love him or want to become closer to Him by pleasing Him?

P Forgetting our short time on this Earth

Forgetting that we cannot live forever and that we might very easily die tomorrow and stand before God to account for how we used our life means that people can put off repentance and doing what is right.

P Not encouraging good and forbidding evil

If we do not as a community encourage what is just and good and forbid what is unjust and evil and do not behave according to the morals of Islam then we are not and will not be the ‘best of peoples’. Race class or even religion- being a Muslim who practises the five pillars and saying ‘La illahi il-Allah’ are not enough to save us from punishment. Muslim parents teachers and the community in general need to fulfil their duty to try to be the best of examples of Islam in action and to teach each other and especially children what Islam is all about if we are to see any improvements.

Huthaifah (may God be pleased with him) reported: ‘The Prophet (PBUH) said “By Him in Whose Hand my life is you either enjoin good and forbid evil or Allah will certainly soon send His punishment to you. Then you will make supplication and it will not be accepted’. (Hadith collection of At-Tirmithi)

Quran Surah Al Imran (3) Ayat 104:‘Be a community that calls for what is good urges what is right and forbids what is wrong: those who do this are the successful ones.’

P The need to repent and reform

In any case if we are not careful about minor sins if committed ever more frequently these can develop into bad habits that are quite hard to get rid of such as smoking eating excessively or backbiting. Step by step these bad habits can lead to a major sin being committed.

However the extremist Khawarij-like idea that a Muslim becomes a ‘Disbeliever’ if they sin is not true- who can be perfect and sinless even if they are a Muslim? Nobody should expect this- we cannot be angels. Even the sin of worshipping and obeying other than God can be forgiven if people repent and change before dying. God’s forgiveness and mercy are always open to us while we are alive making it easy for us to repent and reform.

Quran Az-Zumar (39): Ayat 53: ‘Say ‘[God says] My servants who have harmed yourselves by your own excess do not despair of God’s mercy. God forgives all sins: He is truly the Most Forgiving the Most Merciful.’

Next Week: How to stay away from sin

Luzita Ball is an English revert sister who has studied researched written and spoken about Islam for most of her life since 1991. To contact the writer mail to: