Bid'ah (Innovation) and Shirk
Question:
Salam,
Sir I wanted to ask that are bidah and shirk same level of sins and is bidah also non forgivable sin if died without repent as shirk?
Thank You Regards
Answer:
Salam,
Bid’ah refers to any innovated act that is introduced into religion as part of the religion. This is a very grave sin if it is done knowingly as it causes misguidance that apparently is coming from the corpus of religion (while it is really been wrongly attributed to religion). It is normally very difficult to convince people that what they are doing is not part of religion, when this is already established in their society and culture.
Having said that, based on the Qur’an, no sin is worse than Shirk (assigning partners to God). There is only one sin that the Almighty has said that it won’t be forgiven (unless repenting before death) and that is Shirk (4:48). It is also the only sin that is described in the Qur’an as ‘a huge injustice’ (31:13), ‘huge sin’ (4:48) and ‘a very remote misguidance’ (4:116).
Please also note that there can be a Bid’ah that equals to Shirk. In fact, many of acts of bid’ah at our time have some shade of shirk in them as well. Also looking at the history of how shirk entered into monotheist societies there are evidences that they started with an act of bid’ah.
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March 2014
Salam,
Sir I wanted to ask that are bidah and shirk same level of sins and is bidah also non forgivable sin if died without repent as shirk?
Thank You Regards
Answer:
Salam,
Bid’ah refers to any innovated act that is introduced into religion as part of the religion. This is a very grave sin if it is done knowingly as it causes misguidance that apparently is coming from the corpus of religion (while it is really been wrongly attributed to religion). It is normally very difficult to convince people that what they are doing is not part of religion, when this is already established in their society and culture.
Having said that, based on the Qur’an, no sin is worse than Shirk (assigning partners to God). There is only one sin that the Almighty has said that it won’t be forgiven (unless repenting before death) and that is Shirk (4:48). It is also the only sin that is described in the Qur’an as ‘a huge injustice’ (31:13), ‘huge sin’ (4:48) and ‘a very remote misguidance’ (4:116).
Please also note that there can be a Bid’ah that equals to Shirk. In fact, many of acts of bid’ah at our time have some shade of shirk in them as well. Also looking at the history of how shirk entered into monotheist societies there are evidences that they started with an act of bid’ah.
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March 2014
