THE SIN THAT CHANGES BLESSINGS IS OPPRESSION

Feb 13, '13 11:52 AM for everyone

"And if Allah did not check one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed be full of mischief. But Allah is full of Bounty to the Aalameen (the world and its creatures)." (2:251)

Above all the clashes and seeming evils, there remains God's Absolute Justice, in matters great and small, a justice that is swift in this world and the next. It is another of God's Divine practices that every action, great or small, good or evil, whether performed by an individual or a community, has a consequence that its doer will meet with firstly in this world.

"And if the people of the towns had believed and had Taqwa (piety), certainly We should have opened for them blessings from the heaven and the earth, but they belied (the Messengers). So We took them (with punishment) for what they used to earn." (7:96) "The sin that changes the blessings is oppression, the sin that withholds sustenance is adultery, the sin that shortens life is cutting the bond of relation..." (Al-Kafi)

Then in the Hereafter, where this action takes its real form and becomes embodied in one form or another and accompanies that person in his journey in the afterlife: "The one among you whose prayers are more in this world, enjoys more partners in Paradise." (Wasail ul-Shi'a)

The rewards and punishments in the Hereafter are not prescribed arbitrarily (like the prescribed fines for different levels of speeding in a car) but are in fact the direct realities of our actions. In the Hereafter, we will meet not with the consequences of our actions, or with their prescribed punishments, but with the reality of our actions: "On that day, each soul will find the good it did present" (3:30)

Thus the justice of the Hereafter is the ultimate justice without an iota of oppression. "O He whose punishment is just" (Du'a Jawshan Kabeer) Such a realization makes us wonder what we have sown for ourselves in the next world, and fear what God's Justice may mean for us: "And from Your Absolute Justice do I flee." (Du'a Arafah)

Thus we plead to Allah to temper His Justice with His Mercy when it comes to the Day of Accounting, and ask him to resort to the Mercy He has prescribed upon Himself: "Your Lord has prescribed Mercy upon Himself." (6:54)