The Quran about bad
In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful
Our attitude to one or another event is expressed through evaluation. Some of such assessments are concepts of bad, evil, wrong.
The Quran contains many universal provisions and deals with different situations. These concepts are not an exception and are expressed by the term “saa’a”: to be bad, unpleasant, to cause evil, trouble.
Addressing people with certain advices, the Creator reveals our true states, which, if it is desired, can be corrected for the better.
If you disclose your charitable expenditures, it is beneficence; but if you conceal them and give them to the poor, it is better for you. He will remove from you some of your misdeeds. Indeed, God with what you do, is Acquainted! (2:271)
The main function of the Quran is to adjust the person to the mode of distinction, including differentiating the bad from the good.
He only orders you to evil and excessiveness and to say about God what you do not know. (2:169)
Armed by distinction, the believer knows about the source of the appearance of the concept of the bad – about the disobedient to God. The hypocrites, whose fate in the future life is the most ill-fated, have always been the most dangerous conductors of everything bad in life.
If good touches you, it distresses them; but if evil strikes you, they rejoice at it. And if you are patient and circumspect, their plot will not harm you at all. Indeed, God is encompassing of what they do. (3:120)
In contrast to hypocrites, the fate of true believers in the signs of the Creator is very successful.
So they returned with favour from God and bounty! No evil having touched them, and they pursued the contentment of God! God is the possessor of great bounty! (3:174)
Freedom of choice for people in any case involves making mistakes that can be fully evaluated as a bad deed or crime. Faith in the signs of the Almighty and guidance by His commandments makes it possible to neutralize the offences committed in the life up to the full “amnesty.”
If you avoid the major of what you are forbidden, We will remove from you your evil deeds and admit you to a noble entrance. (4:31)
If only when they wronged themselves, they came to you and seek forgiveness of God. They will find God Forgiving and Merciful! (4:110)
And when believers come to you, say, “Peace be upon you.”
Your Lord has decreed upon Himself mercy: that any of you who do evil deeds out of ignorance and then repents after that and corrects – indeed, He is Forgiving and Merciful!” (6:54)
But those who committed misdeeds and then repented after them and believed – indeed your Lord, thereafter, is Forgiving and Merciful! (7:153)
O you who have believed! If you beware of God, He will grant you a criterion and will remove from you your misdeeds and forgive you. Indeed, God is the possessor of great bounty! (8:29)
On the contrary, ignoring the prescriptions of God, appealing to Him only in an exceptional case does not give a chance for forgiveness and correction of the bad.
The repentance accepted by God is only for those who do evil in ignorance and then repent soon after. It is those to whom God will turn in forgiveness. Indeed, God is ever Knowing and Wise.
But repentance is not accepted of those who do evil deeds up until, when death comes to one of them, he says, “Indeed, I have repented now,” or of those who die while they closed themselves. For them We have prepared a painful punishment. (4:17-18)
The well-known fact is the influence of Judaism and Christianity on the course of the history. The Quran positions itself as a logical continuation of the mission common to all – God’s guide. Naturally, in the Quran, different situations are given on examples of people who possessed the Prescriptions sent down previously.
This is neither your desires nor desires of the holders of the Prescription.
Whoever does an evil, will be recompensed for it, and he will not find besides God a patron or a helper. (4:123)
God had already taken a covenant from the children of Israel. We delegated from among them twelve seniors. And God said, “I am with you. If you establish prayer and give purifying expenditures and believe My messengers and support them and loan God a goodly loan, I will surely remove from you your misdeeds and admit you to gardens beneath which rivers flow. But whoever of you closes himself after that has certainly strayed from the straight way.” (5:12)
And if only the holders of the Prescription had believed and was circumspect, We would have removed from them their misdeeds and admitted them to gardens of grace. And if only they upheld the Torah, the Gospel, and what has been revealed to them from their Lord, they would have consumed from above them and from beneath their feet. Among them is a moderate headship, but many of them – evil is that which they do! (5:65-66)
And when they forgot that by which they had been reminded, We saved those who detained from the evil and seized the obscurantists, with a wretched punishment, because they were apostates.
So when they were insolent about that which they had been detained from, We said to them, “Be apes, despised.” When your Lord declared that He would surely send upon them until the day of standing before Him those who would afflict them with the worst torment! Indeed, your Lord is swift in penalty! But indeed, He is Forgiving and Merciful!
And We divided them throughout the earth into nations. Of them some were correcting themselves, and of them some were passing by it. And We tested them with good and bad that perhaps they would return. (7:165-168)
As there is no only black and white colour, there are no only bad and good people. There are plenty of people in the intermediate state and their fate will be decided on the Day of Debt.
And there are others who have acknowledged their trespasses. They had mixed correcting deeds with another that was evil. Perhaps God will turn to them in forgiveness. Indeed, God is Forgiving and Merciful! (9:102)
The absence of an excuse for “writing off” all bad means inevitable punishment for what has been committed in life.
Yes, whoever earns evil and his error has encompassed him – those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide therein. (2:81)
The day of gathering, every personality will find what it has done of good present and what it has done of evil, it will wish that between itself and that was a great distance. God warns you of Himself, and God is compassionate to servants!” (3:30)
Whoever comes with a good deed will have ten times the like thereof, and whoever comes with an evil deed will not be recompensed except the like thereof; and they will not be treated with obscurity! (6:160)
As an antithesis, the state of those who believe in the signs of the Creator on the Day of Debt will be the most enviable.
Our Lord, indeed we have heard a caller calling to faith, ‘Believe your Lord!’ and we have believed. Our Lord! So forgive us our trespasses and remove from us our misdeeds and cause us to die with the righteous! Our Lord! Grant us what You promised us through Your messengers and do not disgrace us on the day of standing before You! Indeed, You do not fail in promise!”
And their Lord responded to them, “Never will I allow to be lost the work of any worker among you, whether male or female. You are of one another. So those who emigrated or were evicted from their homes or suffered in My way or fought or were killed – I will surely remove from them their misdeeds, and I will surely admit them to gardens beneath which rivers flow as reward from God, and God has with Him the best reward!” (3:193-195)
For orientation in actions that can be regarded as bad ones, consider the types of misdeeds.
- Unreasonable killing:
We saved your forefathers from the intimates of pharaoh, who afflicted you with the worst torment, slaughtering your sons and keeping your females alive. And in that was a great trial from your Lord. (2:49)
And when We saved you from the intimates of pharaoh, who afflicted you with the worst torment – killing your sons and keeping your women alive. And in that was a great trial from your Lord. (7:141)
2. Marriage with former wives of the fathers:
And do not enter into intimate relationships with those women whom your fathers had intimate relationships, except what has already occurred. Indeed, it is excessive, hateful and the way of evil. (4:22)
3. Evil speeches:
God does not like the public mention of evil except by one who has been wronged. And ever is God Hearing and Knowing!
If you show good or conceal it or pardon an evil – indeed, God is ever Pardoning and Competent! (4:148-149)
4. Dedication of food to someone other than God:
They assigned to God from that which He created of crops and livestock a share.
They claimed, “This is for God, and this is for our partners.” But what is for their “partners” does not reach God, while what is for God- this reaches their “partners.” Evil is that which they rule! (6:136)
5. Disobedience to God:
But disobedient whispered to them to make apparent to them that which was concealed from them of their misdeeds.
He said, “Your Lord did not forbid you this tree except that you become maintainers or become of the ones eternally abiding.”
And he swore to them, “Indeed, I am to you from among the sincere advisors.” So he made them fall, through allurement. And when they tasted of the tree, their misdeed became apparent to them, and they began to repair the leaves of the garden above them.
And their Lord called to them, “Did I not forbid you from that tree and tell you that the disobedient is to you a clear enemy?” (7:20-22)
An interesting point is the fact that the same term “sau,atun” denotes sexual organs:
O children of Adam! We have bestowed upon you clothing to conceal what is blamed and as adornment, but the clothing of prudence – that is best. That is from the signs of God that perhaps they will remember!
O children of Adam! Let not the disobedient tempt you as he removed your parents from the garden, stripping them of their clothing of prudence to show them their misdeed. Indeed, he sees you, he and his tribe, from where you do not see them. Indeed, We have made the disobedient ones patrons to those who do not believe! (7:26-27)
6. Deny the signs of God:
How evil an example of the people who denied Our signs. They were obscurantists! (7:177)
7. Push others away from the path of God:
They have exchanged the signs of God for a small price and averted from His way. Indeed, it is bad that they are doing. (9:9)
Indeed, the postponing is an increase in closed nature. By which those who have closed themselves are led astray. They make it lawful one year and unlawful another year to decrease the period of what God has forbidden. They make lawful what God has made unlawful. Beautified to them the evil of their deeds; and God does not guide the closed people. (9:37)
Bad deeds are associated by God with grave violations of His limitations. The description of actions as bad shows another facet of impermissible actions for people, which are manifested everywhere. The misdeeds do not allow living harmoniously in this land, but also lead to the painful consequences in the last life.