Words from Al-Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim on some of the evil consequences of sins
- Nader Ibn Muhammad
“And whoever has understanding of the situations of the world and its beginning, understands that all its corruption – in its air and crops and animals and state of its people – occurred after its creation through causes which necessitated its occurrence. And the actions of the children of Adam and their opposition to the messengers has continuously brought about for them general and specific [types of] corruption which brings upon pains and diseases and ailments and plagues and dry spells and droughts and the deprivation of the blessings of the Earth and its fruits and vegetation, and the deprivation, or shortage, of its benefits – in a continuous way, one after the other.
And if your knowledge is not enough to comprehend this, then suffice yourself with His statement, exalted:
ظَهَرَ ٱلۡفَسَادُ فِی ٱلۡبَرِّ وَٱلۡبَحۡرِ بِمَا كَسَبَتۡ أَیۡدِی ٱلنَّاسِ لِیُذِیقَهُم بَعۡضَ ٱلَّذِی عَمِلُوا۟ لَعَلَّهُمۡ یَرۡجِعُون
“Corruption has appeared through the land and sea by what the hands of the people have earned, so that He may make them taste part of [the consequences of] what they have done, that perhaps they will return.” [Ar-Room: 41]
and relate this verse to the state of the world and compare it to the reality of today.
Also, you see how defects and harms arise at every time in the fruits and vegetation and animals, and how, as a result of those defects, other interconnected defects occur – each in control of the other. And every time the people introduce forms of oppression and wickedness, the Lord تبارك وتعالى introduces defects and harms in their foods and fruits and air and water and bodies and anatomy and appearances and figures and manners – deficiencies and defects that are a direct consequence of their actions and oppression and wickedness.
And grains – of wheat and other types of grain – used to be bigger than they are today, just as the blessings in them were greater. Al-Imam Ahmed narrated through his own chain that a pouch of wheat which had grains the size of date seeds was found in the repositories of Bani Umayyah, written on it was: “This used to grow during the times of justice.” He mentioned this story in his Musnad after a hadeeth he narrated.
Allah has made acts of piety and wickedness result in their respective consequences in this world – consequences which are inevitable. Thus, He decreed that withholding beneficence and Zakah and charity results in withholding the rain from the sky and dry spells and droughts. He decreed that oppressing the poor and cheating in measurements and scales, and the transgression of the strong against the weak, results in the tyranny of the kings and rulers who show no mercy to them when asked for mercy and no compassion when asked to be compassionate. And they (i.e. the leaders and rulers of the people) are in reality the very actions of the citizens; their rulers are a manifestation of their actions. For Indeed, Allah, exalted, through His wisdom, manifests the actions of the people for them through appropriate forms: at times through droughts and dry spells; at times through an enemy; at times through oppressive rulers; at times through widespread diseases; at times through worries and pains and griefs which their souls cannot escape; at times through withholding the blessings of the sky and the earth from them; at times through the authority of the devils over them, who incite them to do the things that result in their punishment, so that the word [of Allah] may be justified and so that they all end up in the place they were created for.”
Source: Zad Al-Ma’ad by Al-Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim (4/536-538)
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