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Unintentional Sins And Their Concept In Islam
In Islam, we are taught that Allah does not hold us accountable for unintentional sins, which brings great relief to the heart, especially when engaging in halal actions. It helps remove unnecessary worry about unintentionally falling into something haram, allowing us to approach halal activities with ease and trust in Allah’s mercy.
However, we are also taught that if we knowingly engage in a halal action that has the potential to lead to unintentional sin, this could be considered negligence on our part. In such cases, the resulting unintentional sin might no longer be entirely free of accountability, as we knowingly exposed ourselves to the risk.
In both these cases, I’m talking about doing/pursuing a halal thing/act
My question is: Where should a Muslim feel relief in trusting that Allah will not hold them accountable for unintentional sins when engaging in halal actions, and where should they draw the line, considering that pursuing a halal act would be counted as negligence and potential accountability if that Unintentional mistake happens later?
The Unintentional sins I am specifically referring to are those that neither harm others nor damage one’s own spirituality by creating a tendency toward intentional sins later. How can one strike the right balance between trusting Allah’s mercy and being mindful of their actions to avoid negligence?
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14 Replies
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Unintentional Sins And Their Concept In Islam
updated 20 hours, 44 minutes ago
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14
Replies
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These are called minor sins and the role for the minor sins is that they will be forgiven if major sins are avoided.
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@Irfan76 sir do you mean that doing those halal things will be counted as minor sins?
PS sir I am not talking about those halal things which if done will make us fall into haram later (but that Haram will be intentional) for example being alone with a woman. for example if a man becomes alone with a woman it can cause temptations and then the Zina that will occur as a result will be intentional Zina where the person will be doing it knowingly.
I’m not talking of such cases I’m talking where there is no risk of falling into intentional sins. but if the sin is to occur in future, it will only be Unintentional
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Halal remains halal, of course.
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@Irfan76 Sir so as we hear and feel that if there is a chance of us falling into Unintentional mistake later inside a halal thing, then we should try to mitigate or minimize that risk with different tactics. which if not done would be counted as negligence and hence a person can be held accountable for it.
Here i am only referring to those unintentional Haram mistakes that will not harm anyone else, nor will they produce a seed in me that will cause me to fall into intentional sins because of lesser sensitivity. I’m only talking about personal Unintentional mistake of committing a haram act
just a light example that if I’m thinking to read Quran mushaf in my bed and the bedsheet and blanket are impure because of contact with semen. i thought of putting the Quran on a clean pillow. between sheet and Quran. but there’s still a chance that while reading or while the Quran is resting on pillow, any movement of blanket from someone else who might enter the bed could accidentally make a contact between mushaf and blanket. or if due to any movement or fabric slipping if Quran slips to the side of pillow and some contact happens between Quran and bedsheet Unintentionally. Now if I’m aware of this possibility, if i bring out quran and read it in bed, will it be seen as negligence on my part? and I’ll be responsible on even the unintentional contact of impure things with Quran?
so in the same way many other things and cases can be seen with various Haram, where, what we are doing is halal but there’s risk of us committing an Unintentional mistake, if we continue in that halal thing. my question is that where can a Muslim conclude that he did enough effort to minimize the risk and now whatever over and above is left will not be held against him and it will be truly counted as Unintentional mistake (when it happens) and he can continue doing that halal with relax mind? and where is he supposed to leave doing that halal thing altogether, so that it won’t be counted as negligence on his behalf that Allah might say to him “you knew that such Unintentional mistake can happen, but yet you still went ahead!”?
– Does it depend on size of Haram that will happen as an unintentional mistake?- Does it depend upon availability of easy alternative with lesser risk, that would make the higher risk option, seen as negligence? -
No one can avoid unintentional and minor sins. Despite this fact we proceed. Since these sins are not completely unavoidable therefore God has told us that He would forgive them if we stay away from major sins.
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@Irfan76 okay sir, so when we are aware that some personal Unintentional sin can take place from us, are we required Islamically to decrease it’s chances, by taking some precautions? which if not taken will make him accountable to Allah? or be counted as negligence on his behalf, that he could have taken some steps to ensure that those Unintentional sin are lesser in chances of happening, but he didn’t?
or take an alternative with lesser chances, if it’s available? and if he doesn’t take the alternative and continues with it then he can be questioned for it?
is there something like this?
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We try to minimize minor sins. and yet we ask for forgiveness. That is what we do. So keep doing things and avoid sins, and when you feel you got involved in some minor sins, ask for forgiveness. That’s it.
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@Irfan76 sir I wanted to ask that if someone wants to do a halal thing (A) to achieve a halal result, but in this there some chances of falling into unintentional big Haram later (personal Haram). and then he also have another alternative of halal thing (B) which has no chance of that unintentional big Haram (personal Haram) happening and it achieves the more or less same halal achievement
for this man, will he be required to avoid halal thing (A) because he has another alternative of doing halal thing (B) with lesser/no chance of unintentional Haram happening through it?
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If he avoids halal for the fear is sins he will end in Rehbaniat which is forbidden in Islam.
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@Irfan76 yes sir I understand that in isolation one is not required to avoid halal for the fear of falling into Unintentional sin.
my thoughts and question was like if someone has 2 alternative halal ways to achieve a benefit. both paths in and of themselves are not Haram. but one path A has risk of falling into Unintentional Haram and the other path B doesn’t have. so I was getting thoughts that in this case if the person despite having a safer route B alternative, chooses the other route A, will he be sinful? What if Allah says to him “I will give you some responsibility and hence some sin for choosing the riskier path because you chose it even though you had another safer alternative to recieve the same benefit results”? so sir can you tell me about them.
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These are pure speculations. There is no way to avoid unintentional or minor sins in any case.
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@Irfan76 sir do you mean that such thoughts and feeling that I’m getting, have no basis on evidence and are baseless?
just as an example sir, a woman who got proposal from 2 different men, both of whom are her cousins. she knows them both and is equally acquainted with both.
To the man (A), in the past she had done both halal and big Haram favors too. so if she marries him, the same way as we discussed that despite the fact of her reminding, there’s chances that maybe during her whole lifetime. one or two times she might Unintentionally consume something or some service which is given with direct reward/return thoughts by the giver (in the same way, we discussed before)
with man (B) , she had only done halal favors so this risk is not involved in marrying this man.
Yes, with both men, whoever she marries. there are some categories of Unintentional sins that are common in both and she cannot escape them (like accidental backbiting, accidental hurting by saying something bad). but there’s one category of unintentional sin which is only related to man (A). (which is using up something mistakenly, which is given as a direct reward/return of major Haram favor done by her, which will make the item or thing also major Haram to use).
so if both men are more or less good candidates and with good aspects and characters more or less equally. and she’s not emotionally attached to either of them as well. so will she be required to not choose the man (A)? if she goes ahead towards marrying man (A) because of a subtle and small reason because he has same surname as her family. will she be held questioned by Allah in the way I mentioned above?
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Every day is a new day after tobah. Previous things do not matter. She should see what is best for her.
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@Irfan76 sir I want to ask a thing about Committing/happening of Unintentional sin of huqooqullah category. that there are some cases where the happening of Unintentional sin is still held against us because of the negligence that allowed that Unintentional sin to happen
one example is the if someone is going to sleep at late night. he knows that if he sleeps this late like at about 3:30am while fajr will begin at 5:30am then he’ll very highly likely and probably miss the fajr in sleep. He has one option to make sure that namaz gets prayed and that is to stay awake a little more and pray fajr as soon as it begins and then go to sleep. so if he sleeps then even if he was not willing to miss namaz and it got missed unintentionally due to sleep then still it is said that he would be responsible to some extent because of negligence of sleeping.
and in the same way there are some cases where a people say that if measures are not taken to prevent some Unintentional sin then the person would be sinful for their negligence…
I want to ask that when it comes to Unintentional sin mistake occurring. what things prior to it will be considered negligence and what things will be considered okay? how do we know?
– like if some measure is not taken by doing some action to ensure prevention Unintentional sin, then will it be seen as negligence and sinfulness?
– if doing an act which is not necessarily needed to be done, there’s not a need for it as such. but it leads to a specific Unintentional sin. will in this case doing this normal thing be considered negligence?
– if doing a halal thing (X), or being involved in it makes us achieve 3-4 benefits and that’s why I want to do it, but it can lead to a specific unintentional sin mistake happening by me later. But there is another alternative to this which another halal action (Y), which will achieve all the benefits that are needed (all 3-4). will in this case doing and being involved in action X be seen as negligence?
I want to understand where does the negligence lies? where not taking a measure by doing something (doing can prevent the unintentional sin) will be seen as negligence? and similarly where doing something (which if not done, would prevent unintentional sin) be seen as negligence?
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