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Severity Of Sins – Comparing Adultery With Backbiting
Which sin is generally more severe here :
1. Premarital intimate relationship
2. Backbiting
I heard there is a hadith that says “Backbiting is worse than zina”. This was quite of shocking for me as newly turned muslim but at the same time it was quite enlightening, setting my focuses and principles right in life.
I want to ask just to understand this ethic here, as we’re told and either consciously or subconsciously we believe zina is a severe sin, which ofcourse it is. But at the same time we forget about these grieve horrendous moral crimes that we repeatedly do in day-to-day life.
– So in this example, consider a “Mutual consensual premarital intimate relationship in a culture that has absolutely no problem with such deeds, this is not a crime there.” This would come and fall in the category of 3-sublevel of zina as fas as I have heard from Ghamidi sahab. And the nature of magnitude of the sin too, seems to be from “Huqooq-ul-Allah”
– And at the same time, consider backbiting, which is not criminally offensive too, but at the same time, it is grive sin, as you’re doing something behind your brother’s back. You’re eating their flesh. You’re not taking their consent while doing something unlike former example.
Please put the light on this, although both are big sins, as I’ve read a particular narration ruling over this, I want to really understand magnitude of sins, as the while the former sin is considered too bad, we easily neglect latter one.
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Severity Of Sins – Comparing Adultery With Backbiting
updated 10 months ago
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7
Replies
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Both are sins in their own right, and are not comparable as such. Please note that all such narrations that randomly compare different sins with each other in this fashion are typically fake and fabricated, and they are purported to convey a disproportionate and exaggerated severity of one sin (typically a more minor sin, relatively). For example, there is another famous but fabricated narration that likens riba to having Zina with one of the close relatives. This is a typical kind of content fabricated by early story-tellers to sell unfounded religious opinions. There is no sense in comparing backbiting with Zina.
“Mutual consensual premarital intimate relationship in a culture that has absolutely no problem with such deeds, this is not a crime there” is still Zina and thus, haram. There is no excuse for Zina and premarital intimate relationship.
Please remember that source of religious guidance is Quran as it is a complete, fully detailed and perfect book (16:89, 6:114, 12:111, 7:52, 10:37), not hearsay traditions (45:6).
Any “narration ruling” that steps outside the scope of Quran and poses as a religious content is void ab initio and a work of devil.
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Sir, I absolutely got your point and thank you so much for your genuine efforts to explain. But I feel I failed to put on my point there, the comparison wasn’t absolute it was just that, a comparison. We all know there are small and big sins right? This was a random comparison to understand our fallacies or ingrained tendencies towards looking at religious rulings.
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Both are major sins and are explicitly prohibited in Quran. Adultery not only falls under Fawahish which is prohibited in Quran but also severely effects the family structure in a society. And if it is fornication (done while being married), then in addition to the above points, it is a direct violation of the rights of one’s spouse. Back biting on the other hand is a result of pride and vanity and it also falls under oppression which is transgressing against the honour of the other person.
Please see the following detailed thread which will help you in understanding major and minor sins along with Quranic references:
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I think prohibition of adultery (before marriage) and even the “need for a marital bond” is to establish and protect the structure of society, right? I mean this is the sole reason we’re said to marry and this is the sole reason we’re stopped from adultery. “Isn’t this the sole reason adultery is considered fawahish? or is there anything else to it? I mean is this ” feeling of fawahish imbibed in our nature or is it a logical deduction for maintain sanctity of social structure.”
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This is correct, before marriage prohibition is principally on grounds of Sadd-e-Zariya. Human race could have faltered in this matter by considering pre-marital relationships fine, so that doubtful line was also cleared by Allah and this was also declared prohibited in Islam. However, this does not mean that our nature also considers it fine – Rigth from the start of conscious human race, it is known that such relationships can only be done with one’s marital partner. Adam and Eve were both husband and wife and this innate dislike of sexual relationships in the absence of marriage has been transmitted as such ever since.
Please also see:
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As far what I can understand from your point and having listened to Ghamidi sahab, both “need to create marital bond” and having “one partner” is in innate humam nature. Where we have or MAY HAVE disagreements is relationship before marriages, I mean one may propose to have different “one partner” for every now and then at single time, which can create a series of a probable link of different partners.
So to clarify this, we’ve Quran. But let’s say people who do not have Quran to guide them, they can still fall for multiple relationships before marriage. Like I was discussing this with one of my christian friend, he said they have this institution of marriage in christianity which is linked to authority of church bla bla bla.
So, whatever our argument is, if a group (doesn’t matter how large) is considering it OKAY according to their religious philosophy, we do not have anything other than quran or so to make our argument.
To conclude my point of view, ruling over this phenomenon of “relationship before marriages” is just as subjective as like “discussion on veg/non-veg”, ” discussion on cousin marriages” or other philosophies where we NEED Quran to prove our point. So just like these other phenomenon, relationships before marriages cannot be ruled over like an objective moral declaration, just like we do in case of murder, theft, fornication etc
am I right Umer sir?
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There is one more aspect that needs some consideration. Even in the countries where pre-marital relationships have become a norm and socially accpetable in the form of a girl friend and a boy friend; even those relationships are initially not entered into with transcient objectives and they expect complete loyalty and permanent bond from eachother. It is only after some time, people leave that realtionship very easily and move on to the next one due to multiple factors. If you see, at the core of it, the concept is still there, in however raw form maybe, therefore I would argue that it definitely has an innate existence.
What Islam did that it explicitly closed that door which people could have used and are now using in certain societies for pre-marital relationships and called it a crime to protect the social fabric of the institution of family.
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