Ascribing Associates To Allah, the Most High (Shirk)
The worst major sin is Shirk. It is of two kinds:
a) To hold that Allah has an equal, whereas He has created you, and to worship another with Him, whether it be a stone, tree, sun, moon, prophet, sheikh, star, angel, or other. This is the greatest shirk mentioned by Allah, the Most High, the Almighty, says, {Allah forgiveth not (the sin of) joining other gods with Him; but He forgiveth whom He pleaseth other sins than this; one who joins other gods with Allah hath strayed far, far away (from the right).} (An-Nisa: 16)
{False worship is indeed the highest wrongdoing.} (Luqman:13)
{Whoever joins other gods with Allah, Allah will forbid him the Garden, and the Fire will be his abode.} (Al-Ma’idah:72)
The Qur’anic verses concerning this are very numerous. Certainly, whoever ascribes associates to Allah and dies in such a state is one of Hell’s inhabitants, just as whoever believes in Allah and dies as a believer is one of the inhabitants of Paradise, even if he should be punished first.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Shall I tell you of the worst major sins? Worshipping others with Allah, showing disrespect to parents, giving a false statement, and testifying to the truth of a falsehood.” And he kept repeating it until we were telling ourselves (out of sympathy for him because of the strain of repeating it), ‘If only he would be silent.” (Reported by Bukhari, Muslim, and Tirmidhi.)
“Avoid the seven heinous sins.” (Reported by Bukhari and Muslim.)
And he mentioned ascribing associates to Allah. “Kill whoever converted to his religion (Islam).” (Reported by Bukhari, Ahmed, Ibn Hibban, An-Nasa’i, and Abu Ya’la.)
b) Ostentation
Allah, the Most High, says, {“Whoever expects to meet his Lord, let him work righteousness, and, in the worship of his Lord, admit no one as partner.} (AL-Kahf: 110), i.e., does not show off in good works, “Beware of the lesser shirk.” They asked, “What is the lesser shirk?” He said, “Showing off in good works. Allah, the Almighty, will say when recompensing mankind for their deeds: Go to those whom you showed off to in the world to see how they could recompense you.” (Reported by Ahmad.)
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “If anybody associates something with Me, I am not affected. If anyone associates somebody with me in any way, I reject him and his act of associating.” (Reported by Muslim. It’s a Qudsi Hadith.)
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “A person who does some good work in order to boast will have his faults exposed by Allah Most High, and a person whose motive in doing some good deed is to show it, Allah the Most High will treat him as a hypocrite.” (Reported by A1-Bukhari.)
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “There may be a faster who does not gain from his fasting but hunger and thirst.” A wise man said, “Just as the one who shows off in good works is the one who fills his purse with pebbles and leaves for the market to buy food. If he opened it before the seller, he would be stoned with it in his face. He gains nothing but the people’s inquiry about what fills his purse, nothing more. Thus, the one who shows off in good works will have no value but the people’s saying that he did good, and he will not be rewarded in the Hereafter.”
Allah, the Almighty, says, {And We shall turn to whatever deeds they did (in this life), and We shall make such deed as floating dust scattered about.} (AI-Furqan:23)
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, “On the Day of Judgment, some groups of people will be brought near Paradise. Having smelt its fragrance and seen palaces and blessings therein, they will hear a call saying, “Take them away; it is not for them.” Accordingly, they returned so sorrowful that no one could have such a feeling. They will call upon Allah, “O Lord, were we entered into the Hell-Fire before seeing what You have prepared for Your Friends, it would have been better.” Then Allah will say, “That is what I want. When you were alone, you defied Me with grievous sins, but when you met people, you showed off in good works. You only respected people, not me. You only refrained (from things) for their sake. Hence, today, I will severely torment you in addition to depriving you of My bountiful reward.” (Mentioned by A1-Siuti in “AI Laiali AI-Masnu’ah,” who related that Ibn Hibban said that it is false and has no reference.)
It was related that a man asked the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), “How can I be redeemed?” The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “If you do not deceive Allah.” The man asked, “How is Allah deceived?” He (peace be upon him) replied, “When you do something which Allah and His Messenger commanded you to do, but you intended other than pleasing Allah. Beware of ostentation, it is the lesser shirk (polytheism); On the Day of Judgment, the ostentatious will be called at the presence of all creatures by four names: O Ostentatious, O traitors, O corrupt, O loser; what you did is wasted, and your reward is nullified. We will not reward you, go and get your reward from whoever you acted to deceive?” (Reported by AI-Zubaidi in lthaf)
A wise man was asked, “Who is the sincere one?” He replied, “It is he who hides his good deeds as he does with his bad deeds.” Someone asked, “What is the good of sincerity?” He said, “When you dislike being praised by people.”
Al-Fudail Ibn Eiad, may Allah be pleased with him, said, “To refrain from an action for the sake of people is ostentation. To do something for their sake is shirk (polytheism). But sincerity is to be aware of them.
O Allah! Let us be away from them, and forgive us.
by Imam Shamsu ed-Deen Dhahabi