Saving Our Souls Series | Part 4: 22 Sins of the Heart – Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

There are minor sins and there are major sins.  There are sins of the limbs and there are sins of the heart. The latter in both are the most severe.  Before you can repent from sins you need to know that you’ve fallen into them. So it only makes sense for us to be aware of the sins our hearts make so we can avoid them and turn back to Allah.

From the sins of the heart are:

1. Ostentation in acts of righteousness
   • to act for the sake of attaining status and reverence from people
   • this (action) invalidate the reward (if it coincides with the action)
   • for example, self-conceit regarding Allah’s obedience – which will be mentioned next
2. Self-conceit regarding obedience
   • to perceive worship emanating from one’s ability and therefore honoring the self because of it. This is due to a lack of consideration of Allah’s blessings upon him.
3. Doubt in Allah [This is tantamount to disbelief]
4. Feeling safe from the plot of Allah (i.e. feeling un-punishable)
   • to continue to disobey Allah counting on his mercy
5. Despair from Allah’s mercy
   • For one to hold a firm judgment that Allah will certainly punish him in the Hereafter.
6. Acting arrogantly to Allah’s servants
   • To refuse the truth, belittle people, and to see oneself as being better than many of Allah’s creation, ignorantly neglecting the grave matter of the ending.
7. Hatred
   • Holding enmity in one’s heart by resolving to cause harm to a fellow Muslim. If he then acts upon that resolve without abhorring the action – this is another act of disobedience.
8. Envy
   • Disliking blessings for a Muslim and feeling troubled because of it, if he doesn’t abhor this feeling or act according to it. [If such a feeling of dislike merely comes to one’s heart it is not written for them as a sin. That is as long as they abhor the feeling and is not pleased with it. This is because Allah Most High does not take us to take for involuntary actions.]
9. Reminding of Charity
   • To remind a person of one’s favor upon him with the intention of harm. This invalidates the reward of the action.
10. Persistence in Sin
    • The hearts avidness and resolve to repeat a sin
11. Holding a Bad Opinion of Allah
    • This can sometimes be tantamount to disbelief
12. Holding a Bad Opinion of the Slaves of Allah
    • That is without Islamically sanctioned cause
13. Rejection of Destiny
    • This is disbelief
14. Being pleased about one’s sin or the sin of another
15. Treachery
    • To break a covenant or betray a trust – even if to a disbeliever
16. Plotting
    • Plotting to cause harm to another in an illicit manner
17. Holding rancor to the companions, the family of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace), or the righteous.
    • Holding rancor for all of them is disbelief
18. Withholding regarding that which Allah has made obligatory
    • For example, withholding Zakat
19. Miserliness
    • Extreme miserliness and inclining toward usurping the possessions of people even if it is prohibited
20. Covetousness
    • Extreme miserliness and avidness to take other’s rights even if it is prohibited
21. Mockery of that which Allah Most High venerates
    • This is disbelief if it is done to belittle and it is sinful if done in a way that portrays a lack of fulfilling to right of veneration.
22. Belittling acts of worship, sins, the Qur’an, Islamic knowledge, paradise, or hell-fire for which Allah has given great importance.
    • The is tantamount to disbelief

May Allah forgive us of our sins, ameen