They replied, “Yes, O Messenger of Allah.” He then began with the gravest and most perilous of all sins: associating partners with the One who has poured upon you every kind of blessing and shielded you from every kind of harm. Is the proper recompense for His favor to worship another alongside Him? Whoever commits shirk shall abide in Hell forever—what an evil destination!

Next he turned to the rights of those who have the greatest claim upon you after Allah: your parents. Allah made them the means of your existence in this life and surrounded you in your weakness and infancy with care, compassion, and kindness beyond repayment. Hence one of the greatest major sins is to deny their right, ignore their favor, and repay such immense kindness with disobedience and ingratitude.

The Prophet ﷺ was delivering these exhortations while reclining. When he wished to warn them about false testimony, he grew earnest and alert, sat upright out of the gravity of the matter, and said, “And beware of lying speech—false testimony, false testimony!” He kept repeating this warning until the Companions wished he would stop, so keen and impassioned had he become. For such wicked testimony brings myriad harms: it misleads judges from the truth, deprives the rightful claimant of his due, imposes injustice in favor of the wrongdoer, and constitutes outright lying before those who judge—evils too numerous to count. We ask Allah for safety from them.

Benefits derived from the ḥadith

1. Sins are divided into major and minor, as indicated by Allah’s words: “If you avoid the major sins you have been forbidden, We will expiate your misdeeds” (Qur’an 4:31).
2. Scholars differ on how to distinguish a major sin from a minor one. The best definition is that of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah: any act that carries a legal punishment in this world, a threat of punishment in the Hereafter, or is accompanied by a curse, divine anger, negation of faith, or exclusion from Paradise is a major sin.
3. The gravest of all sins is shirk, for the Prophet placed it at the head of the major sins, and Allah says, “Allah does not forgive associating anything with Him, but He forgives what is less than that for whom He wills” (Qur’an 4:48). Could there be anything worse than denying the Lord’s favors by directing any act of worship to another?
4. The immense rights of parents, whose claim Allah has coupled with His own. He says, “Give thanks to Me and to your parents” (Qur’an 31:14) and “Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him and treat your parents with kindness” (Qur’an 17:23), among many other verses.