I was talking to my Christian friend about religion and we came across this: He says that when we are born we already have sins passed on from Adam and Eve who disobeyed God.
I disagreed with him b/c God is fair and doesn't put one's sins onto others and told him that yes, when we do come into this world we do have sins b/c our soul is "recycled" and we still have our sins from our past lives. What do you guys think?
The Tawil (esoteric interpretation) of the Christian notion of "original sin" could mean the Law of Karma - where the soul carries sins from its past lives.
However, keep in mind, in Christianity, all humans no matter what have sins.
In Islam, it is possible for one to eliminate all sins. The true human condiiton, in Islam, is be the vicegerent and the "image" of God - without sin.
The belief in original sin is a very fatalistic view of our life and indeed our nature. Even the law of karma is really operative within this life and as the well respected writer on spirituality, Dr Paul Brunton says"The belief which ties it (Karma) up wholly with remote reincarnations, whether of the past or of the future, is greatly exaggerated. The principle sphere of its operations is always the same life within which those thoughts and actions originated".
In Islam man is created in the image of God and there are no dichotomies between this life and the next. Hence it is upto man to choose to live in paradise which is his inheritance or in hell if he chooses so.
The concept of Man is best described in the following excerpt of an article written by R.W.J. Austin titled "Some key words in the Islamic Concept of Man", which was published in "Ilm" magazine of Dec. 1991.
"This notion of Man as committed to and sharing with the Divine Reality and consciousness from the beginning and in aeternis, his choice between illusion and reality and his salvation by awareness or the realisation of his situation is, I believe, an important contribution by Islam to our understanding of the nature of Man. Thus, for Islam, Man is, with his free-will, potentially true or false, good or evil depending upon his readiness to be aware of and true to his primordial situation vis a vis God. "Surely, We have made him of the very best; then we reduced him to the lowest of the low."(95:4-5). Man is not, in Islam, a fallen being, a perverted will, who needs a divine sacrifice to redeem him, nor yet an insolent and wayward progeny, constantly in need of Divine punishment, but rather a theomorphic being provided with the intelligence and the evidence to choose or reject the right way. As in Judaism and Christianity, the possibility for man to choose the wrong path is demonstrated in the story of Adam and Eve and the Tree in Paradise. In the Quran, however, this fall is counterbalanced by Man's, Adam's pre-eminence in Heaven, by the prostration of the angels to his knowledge of the names. For Islam the fall represents one of the alternatives inherent in his nature. There are two important differences between the story as told in the Bible and the story as told in the Quran. In the Quran Adam is forgiven and appointed the first prophet. Also in the Quran, both Adam and Eve share together in the blame for being seduced by Satan."
I think that your friend is right, we have that sin on our soul for na farmani. Now in this life, we do farman bardari of our lord Shah Karim Al-Hussiani and this cleans out that sin.
I think that your friend is right, we have that sin on our soul for na farmani. Now in this life, we do farman bardari of our lord Shah Karim Al-Hussiani and this cleans out that sin.
So are you saying that any human being that is born whether in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Judaism has the sin of Prophet Adam when he disobeyed God? And that when we become Ismailis the sin is taken off?
I am not suggesting that when you become an Ismaili the sin of Adam or the soul are taken away. I am saying that it depends on if you recognize what the sin was. It was a sin of wahjood, this means that you have become apart from God. Sorry about my english, I am not that good with my vocabulary.
May Mowla Bless You All.
Why should we accept any idea of sin that is not related to the reality of what is in our hearts and deeds?
Having said that, we live in a human community, humans are not perfect and we have genetics and nurture that contribute to our own imperfect personalities, our inheritance of sin if you will, that leads us to further influence others negatively as we continue that karma.
Thus we should understand our nature and context that shapes our personalities and thus our imperfect heart and deeds, our karma, and seek forgiveness for those heart and deeds. Then understanding ourselves, the repentance would be to heal so that this karma doesn't continue. God being merciful forgives and keeps working on your sincere heart through providing you with opportunities and experiences for yuo to choose a higher path.
Then being a mature adult, we can convey to our children good values and give them tons of love from our freed heart so they have less of this karma and can be enlightened more quickly and with less suffering. They spread this love and the world itself begins to heal.
Obviously we are imperfect, so should forgive ourselves and others and seek continuous, unrelenting striving for improvement, for good deeds and a pure heart, and for the hope for the good fortune that our imperfections cause minimal suffering for others.
So the idea of sin has been reduced to this process, that is the real hard work of life. The other thing about sin, is that it seems rather inevitable though we try to reduce it as much as we can. At each occurence, we could look at it as an opportunity to remember Allah, in seeking forgiveness, rather than feel terribly guilty (though we should enough to make us try to correct), or fear hell.
The other thing is that when someone is dying, the family appeals to the jamaat to forgive all sins so the soul can attain heaven. We forgive, we don't want anyone to go to the other place.
Hell is a soul trapped, whereas heaven is the liberation of the soul.
