the seven destructive sins.” They asked, “O Messenger of Allah, what are they?” He replied, “Associating partners with Allah; sorcery; killing a soul that Allah has forbidden—except with due right; consuming usury; devouring an orphan’s property; fleeing from the battle line; and slandering chaste, believing, unsuspecting women.” Agreed upon. The term “destructive” (al-mūbiqāt) means “those sins that bring ruin.”
[Explanation]
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—quotes, under the heading of the grievousness of the prohibition of usury, the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “Avoid the seven destructive sins.” At first he omitted naming them so that the listeners’ curiosity would be aroused and they would be fully attentive. When they asked, “What are they, O Messenger of Allah?” he answered: “Associating partners with Allah.” We have already discussed the different kinds of shirk. “Second, sorcery.” Sorcery (siḥr) consists of knots that are blown upon and of cryptic incantations composed in the names or forms of devils and powerful jinn. The sorcerer blows on them and thereby harms the victim with illness, death, estrangement, or infatuation—estrangement meaning he is turned away from what he desires, infatuation meaning he is bent toward what he does not desire—as Allah says, “and they learn from them that by which they separate a man from his wife.” Sorcery is one of the major sins, and the sorcerer must be executed as a ḥadd-penalty, whether or not he repents, because of the immense harm he causes and his brazen audacity—may Allah protect us. Accordingly the ḥadīth states, “The punishment for the sorcerer is to strike him with the sword,” and in another wording, “strike him with the sword.”
Some kinds of sorcery constitute outright disbelief—namely, seeking the aid of devils and jinn—and that is kufr, as Allah says in Sūrat al-Baqarah: “They followed what the devils used to recite in the reign of Solomon. Solomon did not disbelieve, but the devils disbelieved, teaching the people sorcery… and they would not teach anyone until they said, ‘We are but a trial, so do not disbelieve.’” This text is explicit that sorcery is disbelief when it is learned from devils, for devils will not serve a human being unless he commits an act of shirk.
The Prophet ﷺ himself was afflicted by sorcery: a wicked Jew named Labīd ibn al-Aʿṣam cast a spell on him, placing it in a well inside a comb, some hair removed by the comb, and a spadix of the male date-palm. Yet it affected nothing of the Prophet’s mission. It only made him imagine that he had done a thing when he had not. Then Allah revealed the two sūrahs, “Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of daybreak,” and “Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of mankind.” Gabriel recited them over him, and by Allah’s leave he was cured; the spell was extracted, untied, and rendered powerless. This shows the malice of the Jews and that they are among the fiercest in enmity, as Allah says: “You will surely find the most intense of people in enmity toward the believers to be the Jews and those who associate others with Allah.” He mentioned the Jews before the idolaters, showing that they are the most hostile to the Muslims. They bewitched the Prophet ﷺ, but—praise be to Allah—He nullified their sorcery.
Thus sorcery is of two kinds: (1) sorcery that is kufr, namely seeking help from demonic spirits, and (2) sorcery that is not kufr, such as tying knots, using potions, sticks, and the like. As for the ruling on the sorcerer, he is to be executed in every case: if he is a disbeliever, then for his apostasy; and if his sorcery falls short of kufr, then for the harm he causes. Allah the Exalted says, “The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive to spread corruption in the land is that they be killed, crucified, have their hands and feet cut off on opposite sides, or be banished from the land…”
The third sin is “killing a soul that Allah has forbidden—except with due right.” The lives Allah has declared inviolable are four:
- the Muslim;
- the dhimmī, a non-Muslim under Muslim protection who pays the jizyah and whom we defend and honor;
- the treaty-holder (muʿāhad), with whom there is a covenant, as in the Treaty of al-Ḥudaybiyyah; and
- the mustaʾmin, one who enters our land under a pledge of safety—be he a trader or one seeking to learn about Islam, as Allah says: “If any of the polytheists seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the word of Allah, and then convey him to his place of safety.”
As for the combatant enemy with whom we have no pact, covenant, or safe-conduct, it is lawful to kill him, for he is at war with us and would kill Muslims if he could.
The words “except with due right” mean that even these protected lives may be taken lawfully in certain cases, as the Messenger ﷺ said, “The blood of a Muslim is not lawful except for one of three: a married adulterer, a life for a life, and one who abandons his religion and secedes from the community.” Thus the married adulterer is stoned with medium-sized stones that neither kill quickly nor merely graze; the aim is to strike the back, abdomen, shoulders, and thighs until death, as the Prophet ﷺ did with the Ghāmidī woman, Māʿiz ibn Mālik, and others.
Second, “a life for a life”: when someone deliberately kills another person and all the conditions for qiṣāṣ are met, he is killed—even if he is a Muslim.
Third, “one who abandons his religion and separates from the community”—that is the apostate, who, after being Muslim, renounces Islam. He is to be executed. Further details of the ḥadīth will come, Allah willing.
[Explanation]
The author reiterates the ḥadīth: “Avoid the seven destructive sins.” They asked, “What are they, O Messenger of Allah?” He replied: “Associating partners with Allah; sorcery; and killing a soul that Allah has forbidden—except with due right.” The explanation of these three has already been given. Then he added, “and consuming usury.” Usury (ribā) has already been defined in the preceding chapter along with the items in which it occurs. Ribā ranks among the gravest major sins after shirk.
“Devouring an orphan’s property” is also one of the seven destructive sins. An orphan is a child whose father dies before he reaches puberty. If a guardian takes charge of the child’s assets and then consumes them—spending on his own family, using them for himself, and so forth—he has committed one of the seven destructive sins. We ask Allah for safety. There is no difference whether the orphan is male or female.
“Devouring an orphan’s property,” and “turning one’s back on the day the two armies meet”—that is, deserting the battle line on the day the Muslims advance against the unbelievers—constitutes a major sin from the seven destructive ones, because it entails two harms: first, it breaks the Muslims’ morale; second, it strengthens the unbelievers against the Muslims. If some Muslims flee, the unbelievers will undoubtedly gain added strength and vigor.
Allah, however, makes two exceptions in the Qur’an: “Whoever turns his back on them on that day—except while maneuvering for battle or joining another company—has incurred the wrath of Allah.” Thus, the one who withdraws for either of these two reasons is not blameworthy. To “join another company” means, for instance, that a certain unit has been surrounded by the enemy and is in danger of annihilation, so he leaves in order to rescue them. That is permissible, for he has moved to what is more beneficial. To “maneuver for battle,” as mentioned first in the verse, includes leaving to repair his weapon, put on armor, or do anything else that serves the fight. This too is permissible.
The seventh is “slandering chaste, believing, unsuspecting women”—that is, accusing a chaste, believing woman of fornication by saying, for example, “She is an adulteress,” “She is a whore,” and the like. This is one of the major sins. The accuser is lashed eighty stripes, his testimony is never accepted, and he is branded among the rebellious (fāsiqīn), not among the upright, as Allah says: “Those who accuse chaste women and then do not bring four witnesses—lash them with eighty lashes; do not accept their testimony ever; and such are the rebellious—except for those who repent thereafter.” Repentance removes the charge of rebellion and restores his uprightness.
The same ruling applies to slandering a chaste, believing man: if someone accuses him, the accuser is lashed eighty stripes just as if he had accused a woman. These, then, are the seven destructive sins. May Allah protect us and you from them and shield us all from trials; He is capable of all things.
1615 – Ibn Masʿūd ﵁ reports: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ cursed the one who consumes usury and the one who pays it.” Muslim related it; al-Tirmidhī and others add, “and the two witnesses and the scribe.”
[Explanation]
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—cites, in the chapter concerning the severity of the prohibition of usury, the report of Ibn Masʿūd ﵁ that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Allah has cursed the one who consumes usury and the one who pays it.” “Consumes usury” refers to the person who takes it, whether he spends it on food, clothing, transport, furnishings, housing, or anything else—the point is that he has taken ribā. Allah says of the Jews, “and their taking usury, though they had been forbidden it.” The consumer of ribā is cursed on the tongue of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.
Second is “the one who pays it,” even though he is the wronged party, for the taker is the oppressor and the one from whom it is taken is the oppressed. Nevertheless, he too is cursed on the tongue of the Prophet ﷺ because he assisted him in