> Why is Shirk such a Big Sin?

[Qatada]

Asalamu alaikum wr wb.

Why is Shirk such a Big Sin?


Shirk is the greatest major sin because it involves associating others along with Allah in worship, His Lordship or in His attributes. Being thankful to other than Allah for all the good which He has given us, or to say that He has an equal or one who is similar to Him, shirk can also involve rejecting the Messengers' of Allah since the Messengers of Allah call against shirk.


If someone rejects any Messenger of Allah, they are rejecting His message. If they are rejecting His Message, they are saying that Allah has lied and that He doesn't send us a Criterion to judge between what is right and wrong, true and false etc. If someone doesn't accept this, then they are following a way which opposes the law of Allah. They are also saying that Allah has lied, and that in of itself is a huge sin.

So because they have rejected Allah's message, they have also rejected His commandments. Which then means that they would be disobedient to Him without even feeling any guilt that they are transgressing the boundaries which He has set for us. This means that they can do any forms of injustice without feeling that they will return to Allah and be judged for what they did (and be either rewarded or punished for their actions), so they may persist in these evils to the extent that they cause a great deal of harm to the whole of humanity.


Yet if this person never had commited this shirk, and they had accepted Allah's Messengers', this would mean they would accept His call, which would mean that they would be far more likely to do good and turn away from evil because they would have the fear of Allah, love of Allah, hope for His reward for their patience and good etc.


So maybe if this person never had fallen into shirk, they may have done alot less evil out of fear of Allah, and the world would be a better place for the person aswell as those affected by this person.

[Abdul-Fattah]

Selam aleykum
As I understand it, this forum is supposed to be sort of a database for knowledge right? So before we throw ourself at the lions, we might want to try and perfectionize our arguments as much as possible. So I hope you don't mind if I play "the devil's advocate" and criticize for the purpose of making it better. To be honest, this specific question, is one of the questions that I find very hard to explain to others to. So I have a bit of a personal interest in finding the right answer to this question to.

Shirk is the greatest major sin because it involves associating others along with Allah in worship, His Lordship or in His attributes. Being thankful to other than Allah for all the good which He has given us, or to say that He has an equal or one who is similar to Him, shirk can also involve rejecting the Messengers' of Allah since the Messengers of Allah call against shirk.

There's something incredibly wrong with this paragraph. It's good as an explanation of what Shirk means, but not as an argument why shirk is the biggest sin. And the first sentence "As an argument, Shirk is the greatest major sin because" builds up expectations for an immediate argument, not for a definition what shirk is. As an argument, it's totally circular. Examples: "I have a right to say what I want, therefore you shouldn?t try to silence me?; "Theft is the worst sin ever, because you take other people's property." To lie is the worst sin ever, because then you don't tell the truth.

If someone rejects any Messenger of Allah, they are rejecting His message. If they are rejecting His Message, they are saying that Allah has lied and that He doesn't send us a Criterion to judge between what is right and wrong, true and false etc. If someone doesn't accept this, then they are following a way which opposes the law of Allah. They are also saying that Allah has lied, and that in of itself is a huge sin.

It's a very slippery slope:
Shirk could include rejecting the messenger.
Rejecting the messenger could include rejecting the message itself.
And in a way, it's not really necessary either. Because Shirk goes in again the message to. So that sort of shortcuts the slippery slope:
1. Allah (subhana wa ta'ala) claims to have no partners in the Qur'an
2. Anyone who appoints partners to Allah thus implies these claims are false and claims that Allah (subhana wa ta'ala) is a liar (astagfirAllah).
That seems like a much less "slippery" slope. Of course you could then add the part about rejecting other parts of the message.

So because they have rejected Allah's message, they have also rejected His commandments.

Again a very slippery slope. What if a guy commits shirk but still follow all other commandants. Well you could say shirk itself goes in against the commandmants, but then our argument is circular again. It would be just another way of saying: "It's a big sin because Allah subhana wa ta'ala forbid us to. And while that's completely true, that still doesn't help people understand why it's such a big sin.

Which then means that they would be disobedient to Him without even feeling any guilt that they are transgressing the boundaries which He has set for us.

It's a slippery slope again. There are atheists who don't commit certain sins because they find them immoral. Just because you reject something doesn't mean you'll end up transgressing it. And even when people do transgres, sometimes they still feel guilt.

Yet if this person never had commited this shirk, and they had accepted Allah's Messengers', this would mean they would accept His call, which would mean that they would be far more likely to do good and turn away from evil because they would have the fear of Allah, love of Allah, hope for His reward for their patience and good etc.

There's many muslim who fall for the fitnah of shirk. Some of them end up doing ver very bad things, some of them are very peaceful in nature. I mean I believe your argument, but I don't think it's a very strong argument, and I don't think it'll hold when talking to non-Muslims or even with a lot of Muslims for that matter. Well like I said, I believe this take on it, but for the argument to hold it's ground in debate, it would have to be a lot stronger. Perhaps if rather then just saying "maybe it could" we could have a deeper psychological insight of how shirk triggers other sins that might help.

[Qatada]

asalamu alaikum wr wb

Perhaps if rather then just saying "maybe it could" we could have a deeper psychological insight of how shirk triggers other sins that might help

jazak Allah for the support akhi. sure, we could try to do some research on that insha allah :)

[Hassan_Abd_Allah]

Assalamu 'Alaikum ya ikhwaan (isnt that plural for brothers? New arabic word learnt yay! :D )

Again a very slippery slope. What if a guy commits shirk but still follow all other commandants. Well you could say shirk itself goes in against the commandmants, but then our argument is circular again. It would be just another way of saying: "It's a big sin because Allah subhana wa ta'ala forbid us to. And while that's completely true, that still doesn't help people understand why it's such a big sin.

First, the counter argument is raise is kinda general, and hard to refute if some specific example is gives. Like if you were to say a person rejects the Unity and Oneness of Allah and YET keeps the commandment, then we should askourselves, what are the merits of such commandments? Without a sepecific example this is hard to counter.

Second, even considerig the general example, is it not so if someone rejects the asis of Islam his worship is devoid of what we call True(and therefore acceptable to Allah) Niyaah? A person who let us say offers Salaah and yet commits shirk would not have His heart inclined towards Allah but towards whatever "partner" he/she has invented.

A more simple way to look at this is like so:

1. A persons righteousness is judged by His Actions
2. Actions are judged by their intentions (at least in the case where Allah is Judging)
3. The true intention has been defined by Allah, which is fi sabilillah.

So if a person does commit shirk, he would not be up for number 3, therefore nor for number 2, and nor number 1.

In fact, the fundamental question in this regard is why is it so that intentions, to be accepted by Allah, must be for the sake of Allah? Why can it not be for anything else?

Perhaps the purpose of Humankind is to be absolutely selfless. I dont know and of course Allah Azza wa jal knows best.