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In these final nights, point the way to faith.

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Acts of Worship

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
Not all sins are the same. And there are two categories really that the ulama speak about. There are those sins that are referred to as the major sins, and there are other sins that are referred to as minor sins. It's not a really good translation of the word kabira and saghira, because it makes you think, oh, it's minor. It's not something important. In fact, major sins and minor sins, it's not about that the major are bigger sins and the minor are smaller sins. That isn't the right understanding of major and minor. Major sins and minor sins, it doesn't mean these are bigger and these are smaller. It just means that the major sins are things that are known and told to us in the Qur'an, told to us in the hadith, the words of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So they're very clear, they're very apparent, and they're listed for us in different places in the Qur'an and in the sunnah. The minor sins are sins that are still big things. They still have great consequences. We don't overlook them and say, oh, these are just minor, but they are ones that aren't spelt out in the Qur'an. It's not listed if there's a punishment for it or not. But the ulema, the scholars and the sahaba have told us that these are things that should not be done because they have a root or a reason that can lead you to a major sin in Islam. So major and minor doesn't mean one is bigger and one is lesser. When we speak about sins, all of the sins in front of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will be things that we're ashamed of. There are two important distinctions, of course, as well in sins.
One type of sin is just personal between a person and Allah. So, you know, you missed your prayer. It doesn't really involve anybody else. Your prayer is between you and Allah. It's a personal obligation as somebody who is mukallaf, obligated to Allah, accountable to Allah. However, the second type of sins are sins that are relating to other people that affect other people. You took somebody else's property. May Allah protect us from this. Allahumma ameen. You know, you slandered someone, meaning you said something about someone that wasn't true. You gossiped, you spoke about someone outside their presence in a way that they wouldn't want you to say these kind of things and you didn't give them the chance to rebut and defend what you said about them. So you've gossiped about them. It's called gheeba. So there are two types of sins. Both of them, of course, both types of sins are serious crimes, whether it's in front of Allah alone, between you and him or involving other people. But one of the things that I want to remind you of are the words of the great Imam Sufyan al-Tawri. He used to say, la'in alqa Allah. For me to meet Allah with a lot of sins that are just private between me and Allah, it's better for me than to meet Allah with just one mistake that I hurt another person with it. Because Allah is gracious and forgiving and merciful. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one who promised us his forgiveness. But other people, they may say to us, hey, I don't forgive you. You didn't give it back to me. You didn't make it up to me. You continue to slander me. You said those things and everybody thought that about me and it hurt me. And my life and my future. And I'm not going to forgive you. I'm not going to just accept it. So that puts you in a much worse place than if you had made your mistake just
between you and Allah. May Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us from both types of errors, from the major sins and the minor sins, from the sins that are between us and Allah and the sins that are between us and other people. It's important to understand the concept of sin before we can continue our discussion. I want you also to know that there are many, many different words that are used in the Quran and used in the hadith to give us different levels of sins because not all sins are of the same level. That will be our next discussion, insha'Allah.
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