notifications_active Weekly Meshkat-e Noor Session: Thursdays at 20:30 at Haj Reza Mosque
Follow-up 3054:
Please elaborate a little and give examples of sins that most people fall into. I can’t tell in what circumstances someone intends to sin and in what circumstances they do not.
In general, how should we discern the true intention behind an action?
Sometimes, layer upon layer of appearances makes it hard to see the truth.
It can be difficult to discern the true intention behind our actions. Sometimes, things we do unintentionally—or words spoken without any intent to offend—hurt others. Unintentional mistakes vary in degree, from inadvertent slips to actions that pave the way for greater sins. Actions guided by reason are less likely to lead us into error.
A person may aim a stone at a wall and accidentally strike someone, with no intention of doing so. Or someone may say something without intending to insult or hurt anyone, yet, because of certain circumstances, their words cause offence.
From one perspective, all errors count as sins committed deliberately, because error results from the suspension of reason, and every person is responsible for allowing reason to be suspended.
In general, before acting, a person should clarify and strengthen their intentions, reflect on the act and its consequences, and bring care, vigilance and caution to bear. Otherwise, an error is itself a sin—the very kind of sin that is called an “error” to begin with.
Actions guided by reason do not lead to error.
Unintentional acts, in turn, have various degrees. These may be classified as follows:
1. Purely accidental error.
2. Error resembling deliberate wrongdoing (an error akin to sin). For example, someone is warned not to enter a one-way road, but goes in anyway and causes an accident. In this case, entering the one-way road is a sin, but the person unintentionally causes harm to someone else. They did not intend to cause injury, but because they had been warned not to enter, their error resembles deliberate wrongdoing and is akin to sin.
3. An error worse than sin. For example, a woman adorns herself and appears before men who are not close relatives, intending nothing beyond displaying her beauty. Yet her conduct leads others into sin. Here, displaying her beauty is plainly sinful, though she did not directly intend to lead anyone into sin; nevertheless, others are driven into it. Because such display is a precursor to a graver sin, this error is, in reality, tantamount to sin itself. It is called worse than sin because it involves a kind of audacity and a making light of sin.
4. Errors that pave the way for other, more serious errors and sins.
5. Errors for which even the word “error” is a misnomer—for example, when someone takes up an action through laxity, leniency and self-deception.
6. Errors that arise from committing a sin. Some sins create the conditions for many of a person’s errors; these errors, too, are offshoots of sin and therefore belong in the category of sins.