The Major Sins, and Not Looking at Those Above You

Allah (swt) then raises several miscellaneous matters. Verse 29:

O you who believe, do not consume your wealth among yourselves unjustly, unless it be a tijārah that is carried out straight away. Tijārah is permitted, but wealth may not be consumed from one another. And do not kill yourselves; indeed Allah is Merciful to you. And whoever does that aggressively and unjustly, We shall send him to Hell, and that is easy for Allah.

The next verse is 31:

If you avoid the great sins which you are forbidden, We shall remove from you your evil, and We shall give you a generous income. Extremely promising, and very comforting. What Allah (swt) is saying is this: if you avoid the major sins — those you have been prohibited from and warned against, the major ones — then your other, smaller sins, those committed at random, perhaps inadvertently, We can easily expiate and easily remove. Make a major effort to avoid the great sins, and Allah (swt) will forgive our minor sins as well, those we sometimes do not even realise we may be committing. And We shall admit you to a noble place.

Then Allah (swt) says, in verse 32:

This serves to manage our expectations in the world. The way the world is made up, the way humanity is distributed, is that there is a spectrum of people. There are the immensely wealthy — the filthy rich, whatever percentage it is that owns half the wealth of the world. Then, in every community, there are the quite wealthy; then those who are doing well; those who are just getting by; those who are struggling to get by; those who have absolutely nothing; and those who are dying of hunger. There is a spectrum, always. And for everyone — as with knowledge and other things — there will always be something that someone else has. Even the wealthiest man: there will be something that someone else has, and he will look at it, and he will be attracted by it.

Allah (swt) is therefore saying that wherever you stand, do not look at those above you; for looking at those above you encourages the desire. There is the case of a man with two watches which he has had for some fifteen to twenty years — ten to twenty years — both of which work. They have lost their waterproofing, but they work, and he cannot justify buying another, since he considers it a waste: they still work, they still give him the time. Yet only a few years ago — he remembers it very vividly — another scholar had a very fine watch, a very fine thin one, and he looked at it and thought: I should get one of those. Not until then — for there will always be something to catch one's fancy. There is always something. That is the dunyā; that is our attraction to the world.

Allah therefore says: do not desire that which We have given in addition, as grace, to some over others. This may be any number of things. It may be men in relation to women, or women in relation to men, for Allah then says that men will account for their own deeds and women will account for theirs. If something has been given to women which men would love to have, He says: do not look at it and feel aggrieved. And likewise, if men have something which women do not, do not feel: I must have that as well. For Allah says that each of you will be judged according to what you have been given, according to what you earn. Allah's grace may be asked for.