Dear Mr Shah Kirit,
It was a pleasure to hear your well-delivered speech yesterday at the Interfaith Dialogue. I found the message of Islam very appealing indeed.
Now, I do have just two questions but never got the chance to ask due to time constraint. I’d appreciate if you could spend some of your valuable time to reply.
It is about the idea that a sinner like us could repent, believe in Allah and perform ONE good deed – then all the previous sins in our lives would be automatically counted to our merit.
Firstly, is this taught in your Scripture?
Secondly, this implies that if Hitler repents, believes in Allah and performs a good deed (i.e. helps an old lady cross the road) then his sins of killing 6 million Jews would automatically be counted as 6 million good deeds in his book.
Where’s the justice in that?
(This question posted on 29 July 2004 was still without any reply as of today)
It was a pleasure to hear your well-delivered speech yesterday at the Interfaith Dialogue. I found the message of Islam very appealing indeed.
Now, I do have just two questions but never got the chance to ask due to time constraint. I’d appreciate if you could spend some of your valuable time to reply.
It is about the idea that a sinner like us could repent, believe in Allah and perform ONE good deed – then all the previous sins in our lives would be automatically counted to our merit.
Firstly, is this taught in your Scripture?
Secondly, this implies that if Hitler repents, believes in Allah and performs a good deed (i.e. helps an old lady cross the road) then his sins of killing 6 million Jews would automatically be counted as 6 million good deeds in his book.
Where’s the justice in that?
(This question posted on 29 July 2004 was still without any reply as of today)
Comments
Peace be with you,
Thank you for your questions.
Firstly it is mentioned in the Glorious Qur'an 25:70
When I first knew about this, the same thoughts too did come to my
mind. The
human reasoning that I can give is as following;
a) The more a person is engaged in sinful activities, the more
difficult
would it be for the person to repent. More inner strength and
commitment
would be required to repent.
eg.; A person who said a lie for the first time in his life, would feel
regret and wanting to repent much more readily than a person who has
said
lies millions of times in his life. A person who has done even more
sins
than this, killing 6 millions life etc., the feeling of regret and
wanting
to repent would be much more further from his thought. Even more so
considering the loss he would have like political power, wealth,
influence,
security etc.
b) Repent here is not merely lip repentence. Repentence must be a
sincere
one that comes from the heart, knowing that it was wrong, deeply
regretting,
strongly don't want to repeat them and to do the best to 'repay' the
victims
or the next of kin.
c) Repent here is also not that we think we will repent after doing the
bad
acts. It need to be sincere repentence. However only Almighty God can
judge
if the repentence was sincere.
d) Every one of us are sinner. Repentence is a Mercy from Almighty God.
Imagine if there is no concept of repentence, we all will burn in hell
fire
( God forbid!).
e) Sins are not inherited ( refer Qur'an 4:111-112 and Holy Bible
Ezekiel
18:20 etc.) and therefor repentence can't be done on behalf of others
(Qur'an 42:25, 6:54). Salvation is achieved only by worshiping the One
and
Only true Almighty God (Bible Matt 19:16-17 and Mark 12:29).
I hope this will be sufficient. If you need any other clarification, do
let
me know.
I also apologise for the delay in reply.
Shah Kirit.
Exempted are those who repent, believe, and lead a righteous life. GOD transforms their sins into credits. GOD is Forgiver, Most Merciful.