The Major Sins Series - Introduction- Abu Usama Dhahabi 117

The Major Sins Series - Introduction

By Abu Usama Dhahabi

Opening

As-salāmu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullāhi wa barakātuh

Bismillāhir-Rahmānir-Rahīm

Introduction to Kitāb al-Kabā'ir

As we mentioned last week, Ikhwatifillah, we're going to begin inshaAllah to deal with the book by Imam al-Dhahabi, Kitāb al-Kabā'ir, rahimahullāhu taʻālā, and instead of reading the introduction, and every book in al-Islam has an introduction. This was the way that the ulamas of al-Islam used to write their books, and this is the way that they continue to write their books, where they will have a muqaddamah. And the introduction is important, whether it's in Arabic or in English, because the introduction is going to let you know what is the minhaj of that person who wrote the book.

The introduction is going to shed light on the contents of the book. And based upon the introduction, you can criticize the author. And Imam al-Bukhari, rahimahullāhu taʻālā, he put upon himself a condition that he would only put in his book the hadith that are authentic.

Once a person knows that, that that was his goal and his objective, if he were to find a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari that's not authentic, now he can criticize Imam al-Bukhari. The weak hadith that are in Sahih al-Bukhari, for an example, they're there for a reason, so it may not be necessarily just and fair to criticize him until you know what is and what was the minhaj of that author. So every book in al-Islam, it has an introduction to it to shed light on the issue that's going to be dealt with.

Instead of reading the introduction of Imam al-Dhahabi, rahimahullāhu taʻālā, in this book where he gave each and every one of us nasiha, he's given us advice, the ummah of al-Islam advice. And he gathered for us a book that details the issues of the kabā'ir. So instead of dealing with reading it word for word, we have made the talkhis of what he did.

Four Primary Issues in the Introduction

He talked about four primary issues in the introduction.

First Issue: Division of Sins into Major and Minor

The first issue that he spoke about was he wanted to prove this concept of dividing the dhunūb and the maʻāsi into kabā'ir and saghā'ir is from al-Islam. He wanted to prove that.

There are certain people from the people of al-Ahwā who follow their desires who said there are no kabā'ir and there are no saghā'ir. All of the sins are kabā'ir. People who had good intention from the ahlul tasawwuf, they had good intention.

They said if you disobey Allah subhānahu wa taʻālā then that's a kabīrah. And Imam al-Dhahabi brought that this distinction it is from al-Islam. To say that this sin is a kabīrah and to say that this is a saghīrah, he wanted to prove that in the introduction.

"If you avoid the major sins which you are forbidden, We will remove from you your lesser sins and admit you to a noble entrance [into Paradise]."

People stay away from the major sins that you have been prohibited from, Allah will give you the kafara. He will make the takfir. He will expiate your other sins, the smallest sins that you do, Allah will wipe them away and he will cause you to enter into an honorable entering. So Allah taʻālā in this ayat, he called the sins kabā'ir. If you stay away from the kabā'ir.

In another ayat, as Imam al-Dhahabi brought, he said that Allah azza wa jalla said:

"Those who avoid the major sins and immoralities, only [committing] slight ones."

Those people who avoid and they stay away from the major from the fawāhish, except they fall into the smallest sins, they fall into the lamam, those things that the people can't help. They're the less significant, the dhunūb and maʻāsi. For those people, Allah subhānahu wa taʻālā your Lord, he is forgiving.

And we have too many ahadith of Rasulullah ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam that also established this point, where he told us:

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 233)

"The five [daily] prayers and from one Friday prayer to the next and from Ramadan to Ramadan are expiations for what is between them if major sins are avoided."

ṣallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam, prayer to the next Juma prayer, and one Ramadan to the next Ramadan is an expiation, if you stay away from the major sins. So if you fall into the small sins, like looking at a woman inadvertently, you didn't mean to do it, you looked and it was there, but you made istighfar, that Allah subhānahu wa taʻālā will forgive you by making the prayers, He'll forgive you by making Hajj, He'll forgive you because you fast. So the point of all of this is in the introduction of Imam al-Dhahabi, the first point he dealt with is this concept, there are kabā'ir and there are saghā'ir.

And it's not acceptable for the Muslims to come and to say, every sin is a kabīrah. After Allah and His Messenger ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam, they both have established that there are kabā'ir and there are saghā'ir.

Second Issue: How Many Major Sins Are There?

The second issue that Imam al-Dhahabi dealt with in the introduction is, how many kabā'ir are there? And the scholars of al-Islam have ikhtilaf concerning this issue, and he brought some of the statements.

Some of the scholars said that there were only seven major sins. And they took the authentic hadith of Abu Huraira radiAllahu anhu, that's in Bukhari and Muslim, in which Rasulullah ṣallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam qal:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2766; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 89)

"Avoid the seven destructive sins."

Stay away from and avoid the seven sins that will destroy you. You're going to fall into sins, wa lā budd. Stay away from those seven sins that if you're falling into them, they will destroy you. He said ṣallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam:

"Associating partners with Allah (shirk), magic (sihr), killing a soul whom Allah has forbidden to kill except by right, consuming riba, consuming the property of an orphan, fleeing from the battlefield, and accusing chaste believing women of zina." [Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2766; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 89]

Killing someone, making shirk, killing someone, wa al-sihr. And performing magic, a common practice in our community. Putting magic upon people and getting the magic off of you by using magic.

The mother has a problem with the daughter-in-law, so she puts magic on the daughter-in-law. Stay away from the seven major sins. Al-shirk billāh, killing people, magic, wa akl al-ribā. And devouring riba, taking riba. Wa akl māl al-yatīm. And devouring the money of the orphan.

You've been left and entrusted to take care of the affairs of the orphan, don't devour his money. Wa al-tawalī yawm al-zaḥf. And running away on the day of jihad, from the battlefield.

Not to mention denying jihad altogether. Because we have a group of people who go overboard and everything with them is jihad, jihad, jihad. You have the other extreme of the Muslims who come and say, no, the only jihad is jihad the nafs.

Lā, there's jihad where we kill the kuffar. But it has fiqh into it and it has religion to it and it has knowledge to it. So the sixth thing is not running away from the battlefield.

And the final thing, seventh one is ramī al-muhșanāt al-mu'mināt al-ghāfilāt. That you would accuse a virtuous Muslim believing woman of making zina when she is innocent. Stay away from those seven major sins.

So because Rasulullah ṣallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam said that they were seven, some of the scholars took that position. Ikhwān yā, al-Imam al-Dhahabi, he said no. He felt that the correct position is that they were more than that.

And he used the authentic statement and understanding of Abdullah ibn Abbas radiyallāhu anhumā who said:

هِيَ أَقْرَبُ إِلَى السَّبْعِينَ مِنْهَا إِلَى السَّبْعِ

"They (the major sins) are closer to seventy than they are to seven."

Abdullah ibn Abbas said the major sins are closer to 70, 70, seven zero, than they are to seven.

Concerning Abdullah ibn Abbas' statement, there are two points very quickly we have to mention. The first point is there are a hadith in which Rasulullah ṣallallāhu alayhi wa sallam has mentioned other than dhunūb and maʻāsi and he described them as being from the kabā'ir that are not in the seven ones that were mentioned in the hadith of Abu Hurairah. He asked his companions:

أَلَا أُنَبِّئُكُمْ بِأَكْبَرِ الْكَبَائِرِ

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2654; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 87)

"Shall I not inform you of the greatest of the major sins?"

Should I not tell you people what's the greatest, kabīrah is, the most severest sin? They said, what is it, Messenger of Allah? He said:

الْإِشْرَاكُ بِاللَّهِ وَعُقُوقُ الْوَالِدَيْنِ

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2654; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 87)

"Associating partners with Allah and disobedience to parents. "

That you make shirk with Allah, wa 'uqūq al-wālidayn and that you are disobedient to your parents.

So this wasn't mentioned in the hadith of Abu Hurairah and he was reclining and then he sat up and he became straight and he said:

أَلَا وَقَوْلُ الزُّورِ

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2654; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 87)

"And indeed, false testimony."

And he kept saying it over and over. And the third thing is that you will give false testimony. You didn't see what happened, you don't know what happened and so when you come you start to say this happened and you didn't even know.

That's false testimony. So in this hadith two other sins were mentioned that were not in the first hadith of Abu Hurairah. So it goes to show us more than seven.

Abdullah ibn Abbas said it's closer to 70. As it relates to the second issue it is the number that Abdullah ibn Abbas says 70. He doesn't mean 70 here wallāhu a'lam.

Whenever you find in the Arabs in their language, in the Quran, in the authentic sunnah of Rasool Allah ṣallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam if the number 70 is used usually it is a figurative number to denote a lot. It doesn't mean 70 specifically. That was the way that the Arabs used to speak and they would say 70 in order to give an indication that it's a large number.

He used to say to his companions ṣallallāhu alayhi wa sallam:

إِنِّي لَأَسْتَغْفِرُ اللهَ وَأَتُوبُ إِلَيْهِ فِي الْيَوْمِ أَكْثَرَ مِنْ سَبْعِينَ مَرَّةً

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6307)

"I seek Allah's forgiveness and repent to Him more than seventy times a day."

I make istighfar and I make tawbah to Allah in one day more than 70 times. More than 70 times doesn't mean that when you read that hadith you should make istighfar until you get to 70 and 71.

You should go beyond that. Rasool Allah ṣallallahu 'alayhi wa sallam was using that as a figurative of speech. As Allah said to him in the Quran:

"Ask forgiveness for them, [O Muhammad], or do not ask forgiveness for them. If you should ask forgiveness for them seventy times - never will Allah forgive them."

Forgiveness, if you ask Allah to forgive them, those munāfiqīn or you don't ask them to forgive them. Even if you ask them 70 times, Allah is not going to forgive them. So the statement of Abdullah ibn Abbas is going to show that the kabā'ir are kathīrah, they're many.

Third Issue: How Do We Know a Sin is Major or Minor?

The third point, extremely important point, dealing with the major sins is he talked about how do we know that a sin is a major sin? And how do we know that a sin is a minor sin? He spoke about that issue and he mentioned there are two things that will let you know that the sin is a major sin.

In this Deen of al-Islam, if you want to know whether or not the sin is a major sin or a minor sin, then there are three things that you need to know. Al-Imam al-Dhahabi mentioned two in the introduction.

Number one, if the sin has a waʻīd connected to it in the dunya or the akhirah.

If the sin that is being done has been described in the Quran or the sunnah as being something that Allah subhānahu wa taʻālā is going to punish the person for it. Allah subhānahu wa taʻālā will curse the person for it. Allah will put him in the hellfire.

Allah won't look at him. Allah won't purify them. They're from the brothers of the shayateen. They're similar to the kuffar. They will be far from the rahmah of Allah. They won't go into Jannah.

And that is akabīra from the kabā'ir. If it has a waʻīd.

The second thing that al-Imam al-Dhahabi brought was if there is a ḥadd in the dunya for that sin.

If you get your hand chopped off for stealing, stealing is a major sin. If you get flogged for drinking khamr, khamr is a major sin. If you get locked up for being a deviant as the ulama of Islam used to have deviants locked up in the prison, it's a major sin.

So if it has a hadd, it's a major sin.

Finally the third thing al-Imam al-Dhahabi didn't bring this but it's understood by default and that is if there is a naşş, Allah or his messenger said, this is a major sin.

Shall I not tell you what the major sins are? Yes Rasulullah, what are they? He said shirk. So you know it's a major sin.

That's the third point that al-Imam al-Dhahabi mentioned.

Fourth Issue: Levels and Degrees Among the Major Sins

Fourth and final point that he mentioned in the introduction before we go into the first kabīrah is that he wanted to explain how the kabā'ir, even though they are kabā'ir, they're major sins, the kabā'ir they have levels and degrees and they're not all on the same level.

And shirk is a kabīrah from the kabā'ir but making shirk with Allah subhānahu wa taʻālā is not the same as killing someone. Making shirk is greater. Killing someone is a kabīrah from the kabā'ir but it is not the same as the qawla al-zuhr, bearing false witness.

So he wanted to explain that the kabā'ir are different levels and those are the four points that he dealt with in the introduction.

Summary and Conclusion

And to sum up the introduction I would like to say, when we make the distinction between the kabā'ir and the saghā'ir in al-Islam that doesn't mean that a person looks at the small sins of the saghā'ir as being small. Because if the small sins continue to gather up on a person they will and they could burn him.

If the small sins that he does them they can turn into the kabā'ir. Many times they are the prelude to the kabā'ir.

End of Introduction