Your Sins Are Your Own: Islam's Answer to Original Sin

Alhamdulillah. Continuing in chapter number 74 verse number 38.

[Silence]

So these are verses number 38 through 48. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, "Every soul is held captive by its actions, by its sin." Every soul is held captive by its own sin. It is held ransom by its own doing. Every person once they reach the age of puberty and once they have a general sense and understanding of right from wrong, truth and falsehood, Islam and shik etc. The choices that this person makes are incredibly permanent. These choices of whether to be good or bad, to be obedient or disobedient. When a person chooses to disobey Allah, he becomes captive by his own sin. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, "Every soul is held captive and ransomed by its own sin." Now notice the wording here by that soul's own sin. It would be very different verse if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala had said every soul is captive. Every soul is held captive except for the people of the right. That would have been a very different verse. Why? Because that would sound a lot like original sin. Do we know what is original sin? The original sin. This is a belief in Christianity that every single human being is born into sin. So you are guilty by default. that when Adam alisam and his wife How when Adam and Eve ate from that forbidden tree, what happened? All of their subsequent offspring was born into sin, having original sin. They refer to this as the original sin. This here is highly refuted in the Quran by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Why? because it is it is it is oppressive and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has described himself that Allah is not oppressive to his slaves in the least subhanahu wa ta'ala original sin means that I the son carry the burden of the sin of my father. That's not true. I may carry or I may be born into the circumstances that led that were led to by the sin of my father. That's different. But held accountable for the sins of my father. No. And this is a question that has come up often and and sometimes people feel confused by it that if we say in Islam there is no such thing as the original sin. Why? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in many places in the Quran that no soul shall bear the burden of another soul. So the idea of original sin is rejected in Islam. They did not learn that from Allah and his messengers. This is something that was invented. It was something that was innovated by the people of the book before us. However, the question then becomes, if we are not punished and if we are not held to account by the sins of our father, then how is it that Adam was born into paradise or created into paradise and then he was expelled from paradise for eating from the tr fruit eating from the tree. But then we don't get that fair chance. We don't get to start in paradise and then come down to earth only when we eat from the forbidden tree. We were all sent down offic essentially from paradise when he did it. So does that mean that we're all guilty? The answer is no. Because this because the question is is this not punishment of of the offspring by punishing the the forefather when Allah punished Adam by expelling him from paradise. Does this not then mean that we are being punished too? And the answer is no. And that is from a couple of angles. Number one, being sent out of paradise was not a punishment for Adam. It was a result of cause and effect. It was a result of cause and effect. To look at it as a punishment would mean that Adam repented and was still punished. Allah accepted Adam's repentance. He taught him how to repent. He repented. Allah accepted his repentance and then punished him in spite of that. That's saying I forgive you to someone and then punishing them in spite of forgiving them. That's not forgiveness. So the idea that Adam was punished by being expelled from paradise. It doesn't say that anywhere in the Quran, anywhere in the Sunnah. That was not a punishment. That was instead what the result of a choice because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told.

[Arabic recitation]

The very beginning, do not obey El is an enemy to you and your wife. Don't listen to him. Do not obey him lest he result in you being expelled from paradise. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not only gave Adam the sense of right and wrong by his he also taught him right and wrong with command and prohibition and then he warned him that not only is this wrong and not only will this be sinful but it will result in the following which is being expelled from paradise. Adamisam made that choice. It was a conscious decision. Therefore, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala then spoke to Adam.

[Silence]

So, Adam then had the feeling of regret and repentance in his heart, but he didn't know how to repent to Allah. And so Allah taught him how to repent. Adam then repented and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accepted his repentance. So if Allah accepted his repentance, why did he then send him out of paradise? That doesn't have to do with his repentance or lack thereof. That has to do with the results of his choice. He told Adam, "If you obey and eat from this tree, you will be you will end up having to leave paradise." He chose to do that. And so paradise he was expelled from paradise not as a punishment. It's not a punishment but it is a res the direct result of his choice. Imagine for instance someone commits someone commits fornication zena and when they commit this fornication they contract some kind of disease. Right? But then they repent to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Does that make the disease magically disappear? If they had caught some kind of HIV or some kind of syphilis, is that going to go away once they repent? No. Repentance is not going to erase the the results of a person's poor choices. Repentance will not necessarily erase the results of a person's poor choices. However, what it will do is change whether those results are looked at as a punishment or as a test. So, we go back to our original mention here. Someone commits zena. They contract some kind of disease. They then repent to Allah. Allah accepts that repentance, but they still have the disease. Now, whatever they suffer from that disease, they'll be rewarded for as a as a as a trial for them. That's not considered a punishment because a punishment does not occur to people whom Allah has accepted their repentance. Does that make sense? This is the difference between the original sin and Islam. So the first point is the question itself is wrong is when we say when Allah punished Adam did he not then punish everyone else along with Adam we say no first of all he didn't punish Adam because that wasn't a punishment second of all when even if it were a punishment when does something that become a punishment if you have it and it's taken away from you that could be a punishment. But if you never had it in the first place, is that a punishment? No, it's not a punishment. So for instance, we were never born into paradise. We never experienced paradise. We were born into this world. Had we been in paradise and then we were taken out of paradise, that would be a punishment because something now has been taken away from us. But if we never had it in the first place, how could that be considered a punishment? So hypothetically speaking, had it been a punishment, it would have only been a punishment to the person who had it in the first place, not to someone who never had it ever. So this verse is very very important for us to understand the difference between he said every soul is captive by its own sin. He didn't say every soul is held captive. He said every soul is held captive by its own sin. Therefore, we are not born in the red. We're not born into sin. We are born be we are born as being what? Free from sin. A clean slate. We are neither held accountable nor are we punished. We are we are born in a in a default position. Then the person by his own choices then proceeds to disobey Allah. When the person makes the choice to disobey Allah, he then becomes what? He then becomes he then becomes held captive by his own choice and his own sin. Not by the sin of his father. Not by the sin of his forefather. Not by the choice of his forefather. This doesn't mean that a child will not suffer the suffer along with the parent because of his choice. Let's say a person has a whole bunch of money and then they go and gamble it all away. Will that not result in the circumstances being changed for their children? Yes. They went from rich to poor. Those are the results of the father's choice. But that's not a punishment. A punishment is as Allah has said. A punishment is only when a person makes a conscious choice having knowledge of right and wrong and consciously knowingly chooses wrong. chooses to disobey, then and only then will anything be considered a punishment.

[Arabic recitation]